Brussels, 19/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Tuesday, Greek Defence Minister Yannos Papandreou welcomed the fact that the "informal decisions taken by the informal Defence Council of Rethymnon were confirmed today" (see EUROPE of 7 and 8 October). Thus: (1) panels working on the EU's shortcomings in military capabilities will have to hand in their reports for 1 March 2003. At this stage, the Greek Presidency say that the main shortcomings concern transport; (2) the Council approved the revised 2002 catalogue of the Helsinki objective and, in view of the 1 May 2003 Conference on military capabilities in Athens, the fifteen undertook to provide the political impetus necessary to hedge against the EU shortcomings; (3) Ministers, helped by economic experts and national armaments directors, considered the putting in place of methods like leasing, pooling, co-ownership or co-management as short and medium-term solutions to meet the shortcomings, given the budgetary constraints of Member states; (4) the Council took note of the work accomplished regarding the procedures and modalities for setting up the EU rapid reaction force and asked the Greek Government to prepare a report on progress made. Furthermore, the Council gave the Political and Security Committee (PSC) a mandate to pursue work on the development of rapid response elements (complementary to the EU overall rapid reaction force) and notably the setting up of a rapid reaction force ready for action from between 5 to 30 days. Finally, the Council congratulated Javier Solana, High Representative for CFSP, for his efforts at reaching an agreement between the EU and NATO following the deadlock in the Brussels summit of 24 and 25 October.
For Papandreou, "it is not necessary to take other decisions if all this is implemented in 2003". The minister did, however, stipulate that if the political decisions to hedge against all shortcomings ere taken in 2003, and if certain shortcomings were met, "it may take a little longer to meet all". The EU's rapid reaction force will thus be ready in 2003 (without saying when) but for major crises, the EU will "depend in pat ion NTO", Papandreou acknowledged. As to the uncertainty on the EU taking over the NATO mission in Macedonia (discussions are still going n in NATO following the American proposal that the Alliance remain six more months in Macedonia, whereas France is against that and proposes that NATO remain until 31 January), Mr. Papandreou declared: "this issue is linked to the agreement between the EU and NATO and I have high hopes that it will soon be resolved". Javier Solana recalled that "for the moment the agreement with NATO has not been finalised", but added: "I hope that in Prague on Thursday the Turkish President will be positive" on this agreement and "we shall be able to finalise it and be ready on 1 January 2003" (see page 6). Concerning the EU rapid reaction force and a NATO force, Papandreou repeated that these two forces would have to be "complementary" and will differ in their mission and reaction capability.
Finally, ministers broached: a) the Mediterranean dimension of ESDP following a seminar in Rhodes on 1 and 2 November on a dialogue with Mediterranean countries to explain to them implementation of the EU rapid reaction force; b) the project of joint training of military personnel involved in operations; c) implementation of the second EU military exercise that could take place with NATO.