Brussels, 17/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday the Political and Security Committee (Cops) of the EU decided to extend the EU Concordia mission in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) by eleven weeks. The initial mandate for the mission is due to expire on 30 September and the mission will therefore remain until 15 December. the Cops will meet up again on Friday to decide who will take over from France for leading the "framework nation" operation. These two decisions will be formally approved by the External Relations and General Affairs Council on Monday.
The Cops decided to extend the Concordia mandate as it was requested to by the FYROM President, Boris Trajkovsky In a letter to Javier Solana, EU High Representative for CFSP, Mr Trajkovsky has also indicated that he would support the sending of an EU police mission to his country following Concordia's departure, based on the EU police mission model sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina. This possibility will be discussed in the next few months by Cops.
On Wednesday, France indicated that it did not want to continue with the command of the Concordia mission, which it has been in charge of since 31 March (France is also the framework nation in the Artemis operation in the Republic of Congo (DRC): Editor's note). If no other Member State comes forward, Cops might offer the command of Concordia to Eurofor, the European rapid deployment force. This force is based in Florence and is made up of France, Italy, Portugal and Spain and was created in 1995 to lead humanitarian and peace keeping operations in the Mediterranean.
On Wednesday during the weekly meeting, the NATO Permanent Council declared that it was ready to continue its cooperation with the EU in the extension of the Concordia mission. The mission will benefit from NATO capability and its extraction force in the area, declared a NATO spokesman.