Strasbourg, 18/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - By adopting a resolution by 507 votes for, 75 against and 102 abstentions at the foreign affairs committee, the European Parliament gave its support on Wednesday to a massive deployment of 7000 soldiers from the EU Althea mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is taking over from the NATO operation on 2 December. The EP is calling on the Council to reassess the role of the EU monitoring mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina but it will not request, as planned in the draft resolution from Dutch Socialist Jan Wiersma, to integrate the civilian component into the Althea mission. The EP deplored the fact that the is had been decided that funding for this mission would come from contributions outside the ordinary EU budget. It is proposing to contribute to the operation cost of Althea in the form of monthly instalments according to lines adopted by the UN and OSCE, in order to cover part of the daily costs for personnel by way of the Community budget (amendment from German Christian Democrat Karl von Wogau). The EP is also calling for porgies reports on the operation to be sent on a regular basis (EUROPE 16 October p 7).
During the debate, the Dutch presidency affirmed that no effort had been spared to ensure a smooth transition from NATO's SFOR mission to the European Union's Althea mission. Atzo Nicolai the president said that Bosnia-Herzegovina was on the right track and was increasingly moving from the Dayton era to that of Brussels but still had to cooperate more with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). These comments were relayed by the Commissioner for external relations Chris Patten, who criticised the attitude of the Republic Sprska. Pointing out that the ICTY Prosecutor General Carla del Ponte would be presenting a report on this subject to the Security Council on 25 November, Patten was pessimistic, explaining that he did not expect this report to be favourable to the Republic Sprska, which was bad for Bosnia as a whole.
All political groups supported Althea. Anneli Jäätteenmäki (ALDE) requested that Althea followed up the fight against organised crime, the trafficking in human beings and ethnic composition when the Bosnian police was set up. Doris Pack (EPP-ED) also highlighted the problem of trafficking in women and the need to clarify, in this context, cooperation between the future EU police on the ground. Pack also attacked the term "Althea" because the meaning of this name denoted a "mythological woman surrounded by blood, revenge…committing suicide. Ms Pack considers that its use was inappropriate, "especially in this region where we've been working to prevent all revenge taking place".