At the Munich security conference, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said new means were needed to repair the bridge across the Atlantic that has been damaged by the US-led war in Iraq.

But NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he thought both the Alliance and ties between Washington and Brussels were in good shape, although he acknowledged that his organisation could be put to better use.

NATO "is no longer the primary venue where transatlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies," an ill Schroeder told defence experts from around the world in a speech read by German Defence Minister Peter Struck.

"The dialogue between the European Union and the United States ... in its current form does justice neither to the Union's growing importance nor to the new demands on transatlantic cooperation," he said.

"We should focus with even greater determination and resolve on the task of adapting our cooperation structures to the changed conditions and challenges."

The unusually strong remarks, less than two weeks before a NATO summit in Brussels, follow a visit to Germany early this month by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who invited Berlin to demonstrate that it is willing to improve its relations with Washington.

Rice, whose will be followed by US President George W. Bush on February 23, urged Germany to play a greater role in Iraq following the landmark elections there last month.

Schroeder, who vehemently opposed the US-led war to oust Saddam Hussein, appears likely to expand Germany's role in training Iraq's overwhelmed police and military forces within the framework of NATO.

But he went further in Munich, urging the EU and the United States to set up a panel of senior and independent officials to analyse new ways to boost ties.

"This panel should submit a report to the heads of state and government of NATO and the European Union by the beginning of 2006 on the basis of its analysis and proposals. The necessary conclusions could then be drawn," he said.

In his speech on Sunday, Fischer said the goal was not to undermine NATO but to strengthen it. He also urged Washington to commit to multilateral institutions, notably the United Nations since its diplomatic mauling during the war in Iraq.

"We need to know if the United States sees itself within the UN system or outside," he said.

De Hoop Scheffer, meanwhile, said that the Alliance was in good shape, despite the 26-member body's own Iraq crisis, and he doubted whether the review suggested by Schroeder would produce anything new.

"I'm not denying the rifts of course over Iraq were deep," he told AFP on the sidelines of the annual conference. "But if I look at Iraq, Afghanistan, our partnerships ... I think quite honestly NATO is alive and kicking.

"The transatlantic link and transatlantic relations are in good condition," he said. "I think the result of a high-level panel might well be that the advice would be to re-invent NATO."

In an editorial in its Sunday edition, the Tagesspiegel newspaper said people had been hoping that Schroeder would respond after Rice's visit but that his speech in Munich had come as a surprise.

"Many in Munich interpreted the chancellor's remarks as being not just critical of the Alliance, but also putting the EU above NATO as an actor on the world stage," it said under the headline "Say That Again".

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