Britain sees EU as trade, military "model power"

By David Brunnstrom

BRUGES, Belgium (Reuters) - Britain offered on Thursday a vision of the European Union as a "model power" not afraid to use military force and a strong backer of free trade.

In a speech which offered both contrasts and convergence with a vision set out by French President Nicolas Sarkozy this week, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the 27-nation EU should welcome Turkey as soon as it met entry criteria and study extending its single market to the Middle East and North Africa.

"The EU will never be a superpower, but could be a model power of regional cooperation," he said in a speech prepared for delivery in the Belgium city of Bruges, where Britain's then prime minister Margaret Thatcher argued in 1988 against a European federalist superstate.

"For success, the EU must be open to ideas, trade and people ... and it must be able to deploy soft and hard power to promote democracy and tackle conflicts beyond its borders," he said.

The call for the EU to be ready to flex its military muscles is likely to go down well in Paris, which will make EU defence a key theme of its EU presidency in the second half of next year.

Britain, although it launched moves to create an EU defence capability with France almost a decade ago, is often seen on the continent as still regarding NATO as the alliance of choice for the toughest missions.

Sarkozy has also called for greater efforts to build an independent European defence capability and to modernise NATO.

"European states must improve their capabilities," Miliband said, adding it was "embarrassing" that European nations could only deploy around 100,000 troops at any one time.