Test meets with muted reaction from EU leaders

European reaction to Saturday's successful US missile test was muted. But EU officials said privately that the test was unlikely to affect official European views of President Bush's missile defence plan.

"There are concerns, many of which are shared by the majority in the US Senate. Technological feasibility is only one of these. Others include the cost, the impact on relationships with allies and on third countries," one senior official said.

There is no common EU position on the missile defence plan but most member-states oppose the abandonment of the antiballistic missiles (ABM) treaty. European governments are sensitive to Russian concerns on the issue, but until recently many regarded the missile defence plan as unstoppable.

The change in the balance of power in the US Senate following the defection of former Republican Senator Jim Jeffords has opened up the prospect of Congress blocking the scheme and strengthened the hand of its European opponents.

The French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, has been an outspoken critic of the proposal, which he described earlier this year as a return to the politics of the arms race.

"Our concern is that, in our opinion, NMD [national missile defence] cannot fail to re-launch the arms race in the world. The costs of this technology are colossal.

"It seems to us there is something contradictory between unrestrained increases in defence spending and the very excessive reduction in spending on development aid throughout the world," he said.

Germany has been more restrained in its criticism but the Defence Minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping, has made clear that Berlin would regard a unilateral US withdrawal from the ABM treaty as a threat to international security.

"It is in the interests of Europe and Germany for the international architecture of arms control to remain intact," he said.

Britain's Mr Tony Blair has yet to state his position on NMD but he is thought to be more sympathetic than other EU leaders. If NMD is launched successfully, the US is expected to use bases in Britain as sites for missiles.

Britain's sympathetic approach to NMD, which is shared by Mr Silvio Berlusconi's new Italian government, is regarded as the most significant obstacle to the agreement of a common EU position on the issue.