Luxembourg, 18/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The planning cell for civil and military operations of the EU will start its work in April, Javier Solana told defence ministers meeting in Luxembourg. This cell, which relates to EU stand-alone operations, will start off with around forty people but will not be able to carry out missions immediately, Community sources state. During the meeting, Mr Solana also presented a report on the decision-making process and the planning of rapid response capacities of the EU (battle groups). As decided in November 2004, the aim is to reduce to five days the time needed between the presentation of a crisis management concept and the decision to launch an operation on the ground (half that for Artmeis) in the Democratic Republic of Congo). Mr Solana's report identifies several proposals to achieve this objective taking account of countries which, like Germany, need the agreement of their Parliament. This report will be examined by the Political and Security Committee (Cops) in the next few weeks, to try to take a decision at the Defence Council in May.