Brussels, 07/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - A Deputy spokesperson for the German government, Thomas Steg, quoted by AFP, clearly repeated on Monday that Germany was opposed to the creation of a European HQ independent of NATO. This was echoed on Saturday by the German Minister for Defence, Peter Struck, during an informal defence meeting in Rome (EUROPE 7 October, 8), who declared that "Tervueren is not up for discussion". Mr Steg goes even further and indicates that even the ideal of a European HQ "would be from a semantic point of view, in competition with SHAPE. And this is precisely what we don't want. In stead of this Germany wants to strengthen the European pillar inside NATO. Mr Steg thinks that two things are certain: a planning capability for autonomous EU operations operations will be created but not based at Tervueren. EUROPE would like to point out that the proposal for creating a planning cell for autonomous EU operations (a European "HQ") outside of NATO, notably at Tervueren, is the issue at the Summit of 29 April on European defence (organised by France, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium) and is the subject of much criticism, notably from the UK and USA.