BERLIN - Military cooperation in the European Union will get a boost as the 27 nation bloc is admitting for the first time outside partners such as the U.S., Canada and Norway to join in one of its projects, Germany said on Thursday.

"It will be a quantum leap in terms of concrete cooperation," German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said ahead of the first in-person meeting with her EU counterparts in over a year in Brussels.

The EU project on military mobility that will see the U.S., Canada and Norway join is designed to facilitate the movement of troops across Europe, something NATO deems as crucial in the event of a conflict with Russia.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, editing by Marine Strauss) ((Sabine.Siebold@thomsonreuters.com; +49-30-2201-33574;))