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This pool of about 40 officers would rotate around national military headquarters in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Greece. The idea is acceptable to Britain because it would not set up an alternative centre to Nato. Moreover, the EU already uses national headquarters for operations such as its intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo. British officials welcomed the Italian proposal yesterday as a “step in the right direction” although there are doubts on the practicalities.

Italian ideas on an EU military hard core were received more coolly, although Britain accepted the principle of such a plan at a summit with France and Germany two weeks ago.Britain, which is the EU’s biggest military power, is keen to encourage others to up their spending on defence, and might welcome Italy’s proposal to force the inner-core countries to give firm spending pledges.But London wants to clarify the rules under which the new inner core would operate. After divisions caused by the conflict in Iraq, the initiative was seen by Britain as a threat to the transatlantic alliance. Britain suggested setting up an EU military planning cell at Nato’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, saying this would avoid duplication of resources.As a compromise, Italy has now suggested forming a mobile team of planners for EU military operations. It has been committed to the initiative in principle since 1998, but is anxious not to do anything to undermine Nato.Divisions were highlighted in April, when France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, agreed to set up an embryonic European military planning centre in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren. It is anxious to help the UK, acknowledging that a European defence policy without Britain would be likea single currency without Germany.The British Government has wavered over EU defence co-operation. One new suggestion is that “hard core” member states would have to pledge a specific proportion of their budget for defence.Italy needs a deal on defence if it is to succeed in agreeing an EU constitution by the end of the year. Italy is brokering an end to Britain’s rift with France and Germany over EU defence, tabling plans yesterday that would allow the UK to play a key role in a new European military “hard core”.
The ideas, which will be discussed by defence ministers today in Rome, could end the dispute over whether the EU needs to set up a military headquarters outside Nato.Italy, which holds the EU presidency, has proposed plans to form a defence advance guard, operating similarly to the eurozone, which has strict rules for those inside the EU’s single currency.

The decree was “surprising and absurd” and would have “no effect”.So the men of Torredonjimeno can go back to their normal ways, it seems – perhaps after they have done the washing up.. But local people dismissed the initiative which they said “provoked widespread derision”.The former mayor Miguel Anguita, of the United Left party, said matters of sexual equality and domestic violence “were too serious to be treated in this way”.Manuel Bueno, the village council’s spokesman for the Socialists, said Mr Checa’s decree violated the principles of sexual equality. The men would also be expected to donate €5 (£3.50) to associations working for women’s rights.Mr Checa, from the conservative Andalusist party, said his aim was to express male solidarity with women’s rights. Together they form an island group roughly 10 miles long and two miles wide and constitute one of the most remote communities in Britain, consisting of just 89 houses, of which 39 are holiday homes.