Brussels, 22/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - This week, the European Commission provided Georgia with equipment, including military, and aircraft fuel, worth one million euro, so as to equip the personnel (a hundred people or so) at three border crossings with Chechnya. President Shevardnadze had asked for European Union intervention in April to enhance the protection of its borders, especially security against any terrorist threats to the OSCE Observer Mission on the Georgian border with the Chechen Republic. A Commission press release, which stresses that this aid, provided under the authority of Chris Patten, will contribute to preventing the danger that the Chechen conflict should spill over beyond the borders of the Russian Federation, notes that it will also strengthen the capacity of Georgian Border Guards helicopters to maintain their presence at the borders once winter has set in. The press release states that 25 tonnes of equipment arrived by plane in Tbilissi on 15 September, and that the whole process, from the Commission's decision, took less than a month. The action was coordinated by the Commission Delegation in Georgia.