Brussels, 10/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The General Affairs Council will broach the question of the "Balkans Syndrome" at its meeting in Brussels on 22 January, Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson announced at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday. "We want to create clear scientific bases for actions to be taken", he stipulated.
The European Commission, for its part, postponed to next week the debate scheduled on the subject for Wednesday, so as to take account of the outcome of the meeting of the NATO Council that was also being held in Brussels on Wednesday (see below). "We hope that ongoing talks within NATO will provide a more precise analysis of the situation", declared European Commission spokesman Jonathan Faull.
The question will most certainly be on the agenda when NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson visits Stockholm this Thursday, where he is to meet Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, President of the General Affairs Council, and Defence Minister Bjorn von Sydow.
In the EU Council, the majority of representatives of Member States of the interim Political and Security Committee (COPSi), meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, agreed that it was foremost up to NATO to look after the follow-up to the cases of leukemia and other pathologies affecting soldiers who took part in operations during the war in Bosnia and Kosovo. During an exchange of views requested by Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut, the Political and Security Committee however observed that the concerns raised by the Belgian authorities were shared by many Member States, and hoped that NATO would take account of them, Anders Bjuner, Swedish representative in COPSi, who chaired the meeting, told the press. Anders Bjuner made a point of distinguishing between this affair and issues that will have to be taken into account in the framework of developing the Common Security and Defence Policy and EU-led crisis management, such as: how to avoid health risks in theatres of operation? have the local populations been affected? How could the EU respond to these types of environmental problems?
At NATO, Portugal, Italy, Germany and Belgium, notably, demanded an enquiry into the risks provoked by exposure to depleted uranium. NATO Member states agreed to share the results of their health and environmental enquiries into the Balkans Syndrome. The United States and Britain, on the other hand, rejected a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium in weapons, demanded by Italy, country so far most affected by cases of cancer among the military personnel having served in Kosovo.
Responding to the growing concerns of the public, several Member States have announced the launch of cancer screening campaigns. The United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark have announced that they would be setting up screening programmes intended to "reassure" soldiers and civilians who served in the Balkans, even though the defence ministers of the three States agree to stress that the link between cancers among soldiers and depleted uranium has not yet been demonstrated. In France, the Defence Committee of the National Assembly announced its intention of extending to the Balkans the Committee of Enquiry so far devoted to the "Gulf War Syndrome".
In the European Parliament, the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament provided its agreement in principle to a debate on the "Balkans Syndrome" being organised at the forthcoming plenary session (from 15 to 18 January, in Strasbourg). The Green Group called on the Council and Commission to speak on the issue during that session, and recalled, in a press release, that in May 1999 it had sent a letter to Javier Solana, former NATO Secretary General, and the Defence Ministers of the Fifteen, stressing the risks of depleted uranium. As for German Christian-Democrat Elmar Brok, Chair of the EP's Committee of Foreign Affairs and Security, he and Armin Laschet, also a Euro-MP member of the CDU, have tabled a draft resolution in which they demand that NATO establish a moratorium on the future use of munitions armed with uranium as long as the scientific enquiries have not reached reliable conclusions. NATO, as "democratic alliance for defence", has "great responsibility and is obliged to protect its soldiers and civilians", says Mr. Brok, while stressing that they had to avoid raising "artificial hysteria" in this affair. According to the two MEPs, a transparent explanation of events can but enhance the legitimacy of the Atlantic Alliance.