George Robertson on EU defense force

Attending a NATO Parliament conference in Prague, NATO Secretary General George Robertson said that the EU's emerging defense force and NATO will be "two sides of the same coin" with "no inconsistency". One example, he said was a Czech bio-chemical warfare detection battalion which had been requested last week by NATO and the United States and which would also be able to accept EU defense assignments. Many units would be complementary since the EU and NATO would not necessarily need them at the same time, Mr. Robertson said, addressing the question of how EU states could finance two defense structures.