New UK/France Defense Agreement by Christina Mackenzie, Feb/17/2012
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3aa66e834e-b21b-47da-b585-73d74e7b5b03&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
“Today is the first anniversary of the Libyan uprising in which Britain and France put the bilateral defense and security cooperation agreement they reached in November 2010 to practical testing. Coincidentally a UK-French defense and security summit was held in Paris today at which British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they were “determined to sustain a high level of defense spending, flexible and rapidly deployable forces, interoperability with our Allies and a solid industrial basis.”...
...No doubt frustrated at the lack of any notable progress that has been made in building up the European Union's Common Foreign & Security Policy and its related institutions since Catherine Ashton took over the job of EU High Representative from former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana in December 2009, Cameron and Sarkozy today also agreed to go-it alone and set concrete ambitions for the combined Joint expeditionary Force (CJEF) that they had agreed to set up in November 2010. The force will be an early entry for-ce which should be fully operational in 2016 and available to confront all levels of threat in bilateral, NATO, EU, UN or other operations....
...They also agreed to establish a deployable Combined Joint Force Headquarters by 2016 using existing French and UK high-readiness national Force Headquarters staff but that can be extended to include staff from other nations participating in a multinational operation....
...There are 37 separate points in today's document. You can read a full version of it here:
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UK-France declaration on security & defence
Friday 17 February 2012 | New declaration agreed at the UK-France Summit.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/uk-france-declaration-security/
“...13. On aircraft Carrier cooperation, we will continue to build a joint maritime task group force. The UK and France aim to have, by the early 2020s, the ability to deploy a UK-French integrated carrier strike group incorporating assets owned by both countries....”
