Brussels, 18/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - The International Security Information Service (ISIS Europe) has published a report entitled "Enhancing the EU's Response to Violent Conflict: Moving Beyond Reaction to Preventive Action". The report contains a summary of the intervention and recommendations made during a conference organised on 7 and 8 December 2000 in Brussels in collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The theme is a topical one and corresponds to one of the priorities of the Swedish EU Council Presidency and also to that of the European Commission (on the subject of the Commission's communication on this theme, see EUROPE of 11 April, p.4, and 12 April, p.3).
Participants at the conference included Poul Nielson, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. He mainly spoke of the need to have "not only economic development indicators" but also indicators on "social exclusion, ethnic or regional marginalisation, the environment and other factors that could entail violent conflicts in the future". "Prevention must become a routine procedure", says Pierre Schori, Swedish Ambassador to the United Nations (and former MEP). He stresses that the EU must engage with developing countries in "a meaningful and non-confrontational dialogue" to dissipate the fears that EU preventive action is in fact interference in their internal affairs. The Swedish government, he noted, has already taken crisis management initiatives involving nine African countries. Kevin Clements, from "International Alert", stresses that "of the many conflicts that have erupted since 1990, none have been adequately resolved". He therefore "begs the question of how to deal with the 39 violent conflicts currently underway in the world and the 23 next most probable sites of violent conflict". The Union, states Paul Eavis, of "Saferworld", "needs to take more action vis-à-vis the war economies, i.e. individuals and groups who make significant economic gains by undermining government authority and controlling access to precious commodities such as diamonds". Michael Matthiesen, from the Task Force Situation Centre, Crisis Cell of the Council of the EU, described the functioning of the Coordination Mechanism created at the Council Secretariat as "interacting closely with Commission services, to examine the civil crisis management instruments at the EU's disposal". This mechanism, he pointed out, "has developed a very preliminary database on the rule of law, with information about how the 15 Member States have deployed judges, prosecutors, prison chiefs, etc., in international missions". The same method will be applied concerning policing (the joint planning of policing is "a fairly new phenomenon", he remarked). Finally, Timoty Isles, Head of the OSCE Operation Centre, explained the role played by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe regarding prevention. He mainly took stock of the REACT programme, the core objective of which is to set up rapid expert assistance and cooperation teams to address problems before they become crises. The programme, he said, provides for common standards of personnel recruitment and selection across 12 fields of expertise.
Damian Lilly, from "International Alert", and Andy McLean, from "Saferworld", make for their part a series of recommendations on ways to develop the role of the EU in conflict prevention. These recommendations cover, along the same lines as the communication adopted by the European Commission: - development cooperation, trade and investment (mainly insisting on the role of civil society in developing countries and on the trade in diamonds) - foreign and security policy (with emphasis on control of arms sales and also on the activity of mercenaries); - institutional changes needed for strengthening the EU and Member State prevention capacities (such as reinforcement of the Planning Unit with the Council and EU delegations in third countries); - the work with the civil society (mainly with young people, in order to develop a "culture of peace and non violence", and with the media.).