Britain scorns France's plans for EU defence

Britain put itself on a collision course with France last night when the foreign secretary, David Miliband, attacked President Nicolas Sarkozy's ambitions for greater European military integration.

Addressing the College of Europe in his first big speech on EU policy, Miliband said it was "frankly embarrassing" that a union of 27 states with around two million men and women under arms could deploy only 100,000 at any one time and "at a stretch".

The first British cabinet minister to come to Bruges to deliver a speech since Margaret Thatcher's celebrated performance in 1988 when she argued against a European federalist superstate, he sought to dispel "the demons" he said still haunted some people in Britain as a result of her speech. He then stressed that Europe would never be either a superpower or a superstate.

In a week when Sarkozy and his defence minister, Hervé Morin, have stressed that France will use its EU presidency next year to move on common defence policies and institutions, Miliband signalled Britain's differences, while opposing France on the issues of economic protectionism in Europe and whether Turkey should be allowed to join the union eventually.

In his maiden speech to the European parliament on Tuesday, Sarkozy underlined that military integration would lead his agenda when France takes over the presidency. Morin told a German newspaper this week that he wanted to establish a European military planning headquarters in Brussels, have officers traded between EU member states and see Europe develop a "military conscience".

Taking questions from students at the Bruges college last night, Miliband sounded distinctly sceptical, querying the need for more military instruments when the priority was to make existing ones work better. "The mismatch is between ambition and reality. It's not an institution we lack," he said. "Let's not duplicate the work that's done by Nato or nation states in a new European institution."

In advance of the speech - introduced by the former Belgian prime minister Jean Luc Dehaene, as "the first great political speech on Europe at a crucial moment for Europe" - Miliband had been expected to deliver a call for a new EU "charter" on military capabilities, although there was no mention of that in the speech.

He said he wanted to engage in the debate triggered by Sarkozy's demands for a "group of the wise" to deliberate on the future of Europe. He then argued, in direct opposition to the French leader, that Turkey had to be allowed to join the EU if it fulfilled the conditions for membership.

"Our top priority must be to keep our promises on enlargement," Miliband said. "Enlargement is by far our most powerful tool for extending stability and prosperity ... If we fail to keep our promises to Turkey, it will signal a deep and dangerous divide between east and west."

On Tuesday, Sarkozy argued that the EU should not be ashamed of "protecting" its citizens from global pressures. Miliband said Europe had to remain "open" to trade, ideas and investment, rather than giving in to the temptations of protectionism.

Europe, he said, would never be a superstate or a superpower, and with the rise of China and India, by 2030 it would be less important than it had been a century earlier.