Brussels, 16/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - During the second "Improving Capabilities Conference" to be held on Monday in Brussels, the European Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministers are to adopt a declaration assessing the forces available to the European rapid reaction force for conflict prevention and crisis management, as well as an action plan to make up for any shortcomings. In parallel, the ministers responsible for the police forces are also to adopt a declaration after their first formal conference of engagement. During the morning of this full day, the Defence Ministers will meet on the fringe of the General Affairs Council under the chairmanship of Belgian Minister André Flahaut, and the ministers responsible for the police, under the chairmanship of Belgian Interior Minister Antoine Duquesne. In the afternoon, the General Affairs Council will formally approve the declarations on improving military capabilities and on the deployment of police forces. On Tuesday, the Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers will meet their counterparts from non-EU NATO European countries (candidate countries, Iceland and Norway).
From a military point of view, the aim is to reach a force of 60,000 in 2003 that can be deployed in 60 days and that is able to undertake sustained action for at least one year, in order to implement the "Petersberg tasks" for conflict prevention and crisis management. In December, the Laeken Summit should declare how "operational" the European force is. "There is no major problem in terms of quantity, but there are still major gaps in terms of quality and all these gaps will not be filled by 2003", said a military source. Out of the fifty gaps identified in terms of command, control, communication, intelligence and strategic transport, "40% are being filled and two thirds are the subject of programmes in the Member States or between Member States", states the same source, mainly citing programmes between the Netherlands and Germany for in-flight refuelling of aircraft between France, Italy and Germany for satellite reconnaissance, the project for the troop transport carrier Airbus A400M, or projects for the setting up of a joint headquarters. The central problem remains that of the command centre, in the absence of any formal agreement with NATO for the use of its planning and command assets, blocked by Turkey. Meetings are being held with Ankara in order to define Turkey's terms of participation in the decision-making process that will trigger off an operation, but European diplomats do not expect any results from Tuesday's meeting with the non-EU member NATO countries, to be attended by Turkey. Whatever, the lack of an agreement with NATO is "a handicap, but it is not critical, and the operational declaration does not depend on it", European diplomats assure. On the other hand, the question of financing the European defence policy and national defence programmes remains a major stumbling block, complain European military sources.
In terms of police forces, the aim set during the Feira Summit is to deploy, by 2003, 5,000 police officers, of which 1,000 are deployable within 30 days. During a conference on the police capabilities of Member States in May this year, the Member States had announced that some 4,500 police officers were available (see EUROPE of 11 May). Here also, the qualitative aims are important in terms of training, command, interoperability of material and police officers since the forces are different depending on the Member States, depending on whether staff is civilian or military. The aim is to be able to use the different forms of police force according to the tasks to be fulfilled, such as humanitarian tasks or the keeping of public order, stresses a European source. Pursuant to the decisions taken at the Gothenburg and Feira Summits, the European police force could be made available for actions undertaken by the UN, OSCE or the EU.