Brussels, 03/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a report entitled "L'Union européenne et la prévention des conflits - Concepts et instruments d'un nouvel acteur", published by GRIP (Groupe de recherche et d'information sur la paix et la sécurité), Felix Nkundabagenzi, Caroline Pailhe and Valerie Peclow, stress the "growing awareness of the Union's determination to play a preventive role on the international scene" and make suggestions on how to strengthen this role. Above all, they call on the European Commission to maintain the "conflict prevention" dimension in all EU external.
According to GRIP, the EU must also "pursue the development of real strategic reflection and a European political doctrine based on conflict prevention," and as far as military crisis management is concerned, initially define "its overall political project, the role that it wants to play on the international scene and its long term objectives", as well as "abolishing any ambiguity regarding the legitimacy of tasks that it plans to undertake by clearly subordinating the Petersburg tasks to the principles of the United Nations and international law". The Union should define more clearly the Petersburg tasks, as well as "in terms of the level of military forces required to implement them", say the authors. In addition, it should ensure that it "keeps its own decision-making ability, independently of NATO", and establish an "effective and clearly articulated chain of command, making military decisions dependent on civilian political structures" GRIP also insists on speeding up the development of the EU's civilian crisis-management capacities "beyond the simple deployment of police and civil protection activities" and calls on the Council to take into consideration the proposals of the European Parliament, and especially that of creating a Civil Defence Corps. Finally it suggests that the EU should extend the mandate of its special representatives (you may recall that it has some for the Middle East, Kosovo, the African Great Lakes) to include conflict prevention missions "for a specific region or area under conflict". The brief of the Special Representatives should come "within the medium-term and be less dependent on the rotation of the presidency and/or the particular wishes of Member states", says the GRIP, stressing that the EU should "call on prominent diplomats and provide them with a margin for manoeuvre" and sufficient means to facilitate the co-ordination of different EU policies regarding a particular conflict or region. (GRIP, rue Van Hoorde. 1030 Brussels. Tel.: 02 241 84 20).