Brussels, 16/05/2014 (Agence Europe) -At the Seventh Annual Joint Consultative Meeting between the African Union Peace and Security Council and the European Union Political and Security Committee (PSC) in Brussels on Thursday 15 May, the 28 European ambassadors on the PSC and their 15 counterparts on the AU Peace and Security Council discussed a wide range of security issues in Africa in Mali, the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, not to mention the Ukrainian crisis and its impact in Europe.
The annual meeting took place in the wake of the recent EU-Africa summit in early April (see EUROPE 11053) and is part of the drive by the EU and Africa to boost security cooperation. The meeting was chaired by Tanzanian ambassador Naimi Aziz and PSC chair Walter Stevens. In a joint press release, the ambassadors said they had agreed “to increase the number of contacts and to undertake a joint field mission as soon as possible, which will allow for an assessment of joint action and the coordination of efforts on the ground”. The plan is for the joint action to tackle international criminal groups and the proliferation of small calibre arms. is to ensure Better sharing of intelligence is one of the ways identified to achieve this end.
Five regions were discussed in detail. For South Sudan, the ambassadors said they hoped the 9 May peace agreement between the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar would be implemented on the ground and, to this end, they called for the deployment of a United Nations force to protect observers from the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD). They backed the idea of changing the mandate of the UN mission, UNMISS, so it can protect civilians and monitor the ceasefire.
For the Horn of Africa, the ministers affirmed their support for a federal government of Somalia and stressed the need to coordinate efforts to continue to boost the capabilities of the Somalia security forces. The situation in the Central African Republic is of great concern, particularly in the north of the country. The EU is currently deploying a military operation, EUFOR RCA (see EUROPE 11080), in the country for up to six months, and the ambassadors said there needed to be a smooth and relatively speedy transition from September onwards from UA forces (MISCA) to a UN mission (MINUSCA). In the Sahel, it is border control that was identified as the big problem and the ambassadors “agreed to work on the implementation of specific actions in the field of border areas management in order to tackle the causes of instability in the Sahel”. For the Gulf of Guinea, the EU will continue to back the AU in its application of an integrated African maritime strategy (AIMS). (JK)