(BRUSSELS) - France will seek Wednesday to give new impetus to plans to boost the European Union's defence capabilities by pushing its EU partners to help meet gaping military shortfalls.

At informal talks in the French Channel resort of Deauville European defence ministers will study ways to better use the 27 nations' military resources -- an early litmus test of the EU's willingness to live up to its security ambitions.

The EU aims, by 2018, to be able to deploy if needed some 60,000 troops with air and naval support within 60 days, and for the mission to remain in operation for a year.

Drawing on EU and NATO equipment and personnel, it wants to be able to run two large security and reconstruction missions -- like the one in Bosnia -- for at least two years, as well as two smaller rapid reaction operations.

Further stretching already scarce resources, it aims to deploy humanitarian and surveillance missions, as well as almost a dozen police operations, some of them for a number of years.

But to achieve these goals, a number of critical shortfalls must be met.

Military experts have defined them as the capacity to transport forces into a theatre of conflict, mainly by air, deploy them once they have arrived, protect them and acquire intelligence.

To test the waters, France will ask its partners to play a greater role in either strategic airlift, supplying helicopters, contributing to naval task forces and de-mining, or research and technology.

"The plan is to go around the table and see where the ministers can commit, on a voluntary basis, to take part in concrete projects that concern their respective countries," an EU official said.

"The idea is to see how to better share, jointly manage and put together ... the equipment held by EU countries," said the official.

While there is still a decade to assemble the resources, the stakes for France are high.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to try to bring France back into the formal NATO military fold, but only in exchange for the strengthening of EU defence capacities.

France was a founder member of NATO, but then president Charles de Gaulle pulled out of the alliance's integrated military command in 1966.

The split had been developing for years, as successive French governments became increasingly dissatisfied with what they perceived as Anglo-American domination of the command structure and insufficient French influence.

France now wants to ensure that Europe can stand alone if it must.

During their talks, the ministers will also take stock of the EU mission in Chad, which is scheduled to end in March as UN troops take over, and in Bosnia.

On Monday, the EUFOR Chad and Central African Republic peacekeeping force commander, Lieutenant General Patrick Nash, vowed "not to let any security gap develop" in the region as UN troops take over.

"Many challenges remain: we do not underestimate the fragility and instability of the security situation," he said, but he underlined that security had improved.

Nevertheless he highlighted the problems faced in military procurement by telling reporters in Brussels that he should have four Russian transport helicopters available by November.

In eastern Chad, carjackings, armed robberies and crime targeting national and international humanitarian staff continue, impeding their efforts to help nearly 300,000 refugees and almost 200,000 internally displaced persons.

The EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia took over from a NATO operation in 2004.

It numbers around 2,200 troops and is charged with military tasks under a peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war, but given increased security the bloc is mulling whether to wind the mission down or assign it new tasks.

Informal meeting of EU defence ministers

Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.