The commitment to strengthen the coordinated fight against terrorism in the Sahel in order to restore stability in the region took a new step forward at the first ministerial meeting to launch the ‘Coalition for the Sahel’, which took place on Friday 12 June by videoconference, without a press conference.
Organised by the Mauritanian Presidency of the G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger), the European Union and France, the morning meeting brought together the Defence Ministers, those most involved in the fight against terrorism (France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Sweden), representatives of the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, other international partners and non-Member States (the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States).
At the end of the meeting, the French Minister of Defence announced via Twitter that the United Kingdom had decided to extend the deployment of its three Chinook helicopters, which are supporting the French operation Barkhane in Mali. The Minister also explained that Sweden was to participate in the Takouba task force – after obtaining the agreement of its Parliament – and that Italy had expressed its wish to join what Florence Parly described as the “European special forces” (see EUROPE 12457/34).
In addition to cooperation between EU Member States, the EU is present on the ground through its CSDP missions, in particular EUTM Mali, whose mandate was recently extended (see EUROPE 12452/23). “Our partners in the Sahel are calling for a resumption of the mission, which has been temporarily reduced due to the health crisis”, explained Ms Parly, while the subject will be on the agenda of the meeting of European Defence Ministers on Tuesday 16 June (see other news).
Following this, a meeting of foreign ministers was held on Friday afternoon with the G5 Sahel countries and the same international partners, co-chaired by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, French Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Mauritanian Minister Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
The aim was to strengthen international mobilisation for the benefit of the G5 Sahel countries and to present to international partners the main elements of the Coalition, established on 28 April by the leaders of the EU and the G5 Sahel to respond to the security challenges as well as governance and development issues in the region (see EUROPE 12476/11).
At the time of going to press, the final communiqué of the two meetings had not been issued by the European External Action Service. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang and Camille-Cerise Gessant)