Brussels, 12/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - Defence ministers of EU Member States are to meet on Thursday 13 October on the site of the Lyneham airbase (Wiltshire, UK) to discuss updating the EU-led military crisis-management operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Operation Althea) and to take stock of the process of strengthening competition within the European arms market. The informal meeting of European defence ministers will above all serve as a preparation for decisions to be taken in these two fields (Althea mission and European arms market) during their formal session on 21 November.
Before lunch, EU Member States will attend a demonstration of the expeditionary capabilities of the British forces. Adjustments to be made to the mandate of the Althea mission will be the key theme under discussion during the ministerial working lunch. The High Representative for EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, and the commander of the EU operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, British General David Leakey, will also attend. In June this year, the General Affairs Council had welcomed the results of the EU military operation and stressed that the European presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina would still be necessary next year. Updating of the Althea mission's mandate at the end of the year (an exercise carried out every six months) could take the form of a slight scaling down of personnel and a better relationship between the EU military operation and its policing mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The adjustments to be made to the Althea operation could be adopted during the formal meeting of the EU defence ministers on 21 November.
Operation Althea was launched on 2 December 2004 to replace the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina (SFOR) (deployed pursuant to Annex 11 of the 1995 Dayton-Paris agreements). It consists in providing an accompaniment to political and economic construction as well as security support for the region, and is composed of just under 7,000 military personnel on the ground, spread out between a military staff and three task forces of around 2,000 men: - the first, in the northern zone, is under Finnish command with Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Slovenian and Greek contingents; - the second, in the north-western zone, comes under rotating British, Dutch and Canadian command; - the third, in the southern zone, is under rotating command between France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Each of these task forces has a rapid deployment capability (manoeuvre companies) and an operational surveillance capability organised into: - a light observation unit; - an intelligence and reconnaissance unit; - and a monitoring unit. Planning means, in liaison with NATO's air command and six members of the EU, are committed to Althea. German, Italian and British contingents are allocated to the operational reserve from their territory. NATO's air surveillance means are also made available for the Force. Finally, the transmission system remains that of NATO.
European Defence Agency: The EU Member States' defence ministers will meet during the afternoon under the chairmanship of Javier Solana within the Steering Committee of the European Defence Agency (EDA). They will prepare the formal decision which could be made during their meeting of 21 November on the creation of a non-compulsory code of conduct to open the European arms market up to competition.
Other subjects evoked are: (1) in-flight refuelling: six to eight EU Member States are due to announce the launching of a plan to build aircraft allowing for in-flight refuelling. Progress has recently been made in this field. In addition to the forty aircraft mainly held by France and the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany also recently acquired this kind of aircraft and the United Kingdom has just adopted a leasing formula to renew its fleet; (2) research and technological development: Ministers will reflect on ways to increase investment in the field of research and technological development, in favour of the European defence sector. The United States spends five times more than the Europeans in this field and the EDA is to be tasked with conducting a more detailed analysis of the subject in order to find solutions to remedy the problem of investment shortfalls; (3) statistics: Defence ministers will discuss the problem of the quality and quantity of statistics on European defence. There is a cruel lack of reliable data on budgets, personnel available for deployment, technology and research. Ministers will also discuss the EDA working programme for next year.