The American Defence Secretary, William Cohen, has questioned whether European members of NATO have the political will to meet some of the security goals they have set themselves.

He challenged them to increase their defence spending and take a greater share of the burden of defending Europe.

Mr Cohen said that unless talk of creating a common European defence policy was backed up with sufficient money, it would simply create a new military bureaucracy.

He was speaking at a security conference in the German city of Munich that examined the lessons from NATO's Kosovo air campaign last year.

The NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, said Europe must play a stronger role in its own defence and rely less on the Americans.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service