Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, has expressed a "spirit of profound solidarity" with the coalition against the terrorists who attacked the US a fortnight ago.

Addressing the Labour conference, he committed Germany to "joint responsibility in forging a comprehensive coalition against international terrorism" and called on Europe to develop new forms of collective security.

Following recent controversy over Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi's remarks on the superiority of Western civilisation over Islam, the German chancellor described the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington as an assault on "any form of civilisation".

"We refuse to be dragged into a 'Clash of civilizations' by the terrorists. Rather, we will jointly take up the fight against terrorism, the fight for the civilisation of our one world. The terrorist attack of September 11 has changed - but also united - our world. This was not just an attack on people and buildings, but on any form of human civilisation," he said.

"Among the thousands of victims in the World Trade Centre there were members of almost all religions and numerous nations, including many of our British and German compatriots. This new dimension of faceless barbarism illustrates that the September attack was not only directed against the USA - it was aimed at the entire civilised world, and equally so at Christian, Jewish, Islamic and other beliefs."

Stressing that the EU had been "the most successful political project in our varied and sometimes bloody history" he praised Tony Blair's efforts to unite all member states behind the assault on the terrorists.

"That is precisely the reason why it was so important for Great Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair and Labour to join us and our European partners, without competitive squabbling and petty jealousies," he said. "Europe is not only the peoples' answer to war. I am convinced that Europe will also play a vital role in the peoples' answer to terrorism".

Schroder, who called on Europe to reconsider how to build a "successful form of cooperative security", set out new objectives to develop innovative European wide security initiatives alongside NATO.

"The trans-Atlantic partnership will remain the very basis of our security," said Schroeder. "At the same time we know that joint security cannot be guaranteed without Russia."

Schroder called for Europe's "capacity to act" to be strengthened, arguing that the EU and nations within NATO "need this increased capacity to act in security policy terms as a necessary prerequisite for a long term equal partnership with our NATO allies and to promote closer security cooperation with Russia".