Mr Saint-Yves asks "why does the EU not promote an agreed military nuclear defence policy, instead of a piecemeal approach to this vital issue?" (April 2). The simple answer is that the EU, like the enlarged Nato, is too big to provide collective coherence on security matters.

The apparent national interests of some of the new accession states are quite different, indeed arguably inimical to, the interests of some of the original "core" founder states of the European Union.

Many in eastern Europe see membership of the EU as not only an economic opportunity but, coupled to Nato membership, a military guarantee against a Russia that is only now finding its feet in the post-Soviet area.

The irony is that the only military "security" Nato can offer is to its most recent members on Europe's eastern periphery, not to its original membership.

Yet in providing "security" for these new states, Nato has set in train a shockwave of destabilisation that is a key determinant of Russian foreign policy that can be felt right across Asia Minor as far as Iran (witness the watered-down Security Council hostage statement).

Mr Saint-Yves rightly concludes that Trident II will not ensure Britain's safety and this is a view increasingly shared by figures right across the political spectrum. However, the window of opportunity, if it ever existed, of his aspiration for a distinctly European power bloc, underpinned by nuclear weapons, has long since gone. Bill Ramsay, 84 Albert Avenue, Glasgow.