Brussels 10/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the EU adopted a decision on 9 December creating a police mission called EUPOL-KINSHASA in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under aegis of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) with Commissioner Adilio Custodio of Portugal. The mission, which will involve around thirty people, will be launched at the beginning of January 2005 and will cover a period of twelve months. The budget is around 4.3 million euros.
The mission comes at the request of the DRC government for EU assistance to put in place an integrated police unit to "ensure protection for state institutions and reinforce internal security systems", says a communication. The communication states that the mission aims to provide follow-up, training and advisory work in order to begin place the initial phase of an integrated police unit (IPU) in Kinshasa to guarantee that the unit will act "in conformity with the training received at the police academy and the international best practices in this field". The mission will focus its activities on the police unit's chain of command, "in order to reinforce management capacities in the unit and to follow up, train and advise the operational units in carrying out their missions", says the communication.