(LONDON) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to build up European defence capacity relies on continued support from Britain, a leading London-based military think-tank said Wednesday.

Sarkozy wants European nations to be able to deploy 60,000 troops simultaneously, he announced shortly before France took over the rotating six-month EU presidency at the start of this month.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in a dossier that any effort to build European capacity to respond to world crises needed backing from both France and Britain, the EU's two biggest defence spenders.

"While the moves proposed by President Sarkozy have the potential to increase European capabilities, care needs to be taken to avoid wasteful duplication and ensure the closest possible coordination between NATO and the EU," the dossier's co-author Alex Nicoll said.

"Progress will depend on how other countries -- particularly the United Kingdom -- respond to new French initiatives.

"It's notable that Britain has given a general welcome to Sarkozy's approach and that the United States now argues that the world needs a stronger Europe".

Last week, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband backed Sarkozy's European defence proposals, saying they would not pose a threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nor constitute a European army.

The IISS dossier, entitled "European Military Capabilities", added European countries could build "capabilities that would enable Europe to play an effective role in addressing international crises" with Franco-British support.

"Without it, progress towards this goal is likely to remain heavily qualified," it added.

The dossier looks at the progress European governments are making in modernising their armed forces to make them more suitable for modern-day operations such as in Afghanistan.

It says that, while governments are changing their thinking about defence -- as the recent French white paper shows -- they are "still struggling to change the force structures that became so deeply entrenched" during the Cold War.

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