Britain, France and Germany have agreed plans to give the European Union its own facility for military planning independent of NATO, officials said.

"We have defined the basis for a proposal with our British and German friends and we will submit it to the conference tonight," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told a news conference as the EU held talks on its first constitution.

"This is a key issue. We can't have a Europe without defence," de Villepin separately told France-Info radio from Naples.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said: "I can confirm we have a set of several ideas in draft.

"We will be discussing it with our key allies and partners," he said on condition of anonymity, indicating further discussions with the rest of the EU and the United States.

"Any EU operations planning capability has to be compatible with NATO," the official added.

Agreement by the EU's "big three" would significantly ease the path to finalising the constitution's text on the bloc's nascent common defence policy.

Senior officials from the trio met in Berlin on Wednesday to discuss the military planning office ahead of the two-day Naples meeting, including how it would cooperate with NATO, the Financial Times said.

The constitution proposes three new areas for the EU to build its military policy -- through "structured cooperation", "mutual defence" and "autonomy" for planning operations separate to NATO.

But Britain has sought to ease US concerns about the plans by saying an EU planning arm will never rival NATO, insisting the alliance forms the bedrock of Europe's defence.

Indeed, London says its right to control its own defence policy is one of the "red lines" it will not allow the new EU constitution to cross.

The EU facility, likely to comprise what was described as a skeleton personnel drawn from member states' staff officers, would only plan for operations that NATO does not want to be involved in, Britain says.

In a report Friday, French newspaper Le Monde said the trio of EU heavyweights had ditched plans first floated by Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for an EU military headquarters at Tervuren, outside Brussels.

Instead, the planning facility would be based in the EU district of Brussels, in the same building as the bloc's military and police staff, and comprise about 130 staff officers, it said.

There is broad agreement among member states that the European Union needs to bolster its military planning to deal with crises both near and further away from home.

The 15-nation Union, which is preparing to take in 10 mostly ex-Soviet new members next year, launched its first-ever peacekeeping operation, in Macedonia, in March.

It has also sent troops under French command to the Democratic Republic of Congo and is working on plans to succeed NATO peacekeepers in Bosnia.

And in another advance, EU defence ministers agreed last week to set up an arms procurement agency next year to streamline and improve the bloc's military muscle.

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