Brussels, 28/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 24 November, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a joint action on the establishment of an EU police advisory team (EUPAT) in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) for six months (until 14 June 2005). The new policing mission replaces the EU's “Proxima” mission whose mandate ends on 14 December this year (Proxima had been set up in December 2003 to replace “Concordia”, that had itself, in March 2003, succeeded the NATO-led force deployed in September 2001 to ensure peace-keeping after the seven months of clashes between governmental forces and the Albanian guerrilla force).
The police experts of this new mission, EUPAT, will take on an advisory role to guide the Macedonian police forces, mainly on the matter of border control, public security and the fight against corruption and organised crime. The mission will be made up of a lighter team than that of the Proxima mission, with a gradual scaling down of engagement due to Macedonia's hopes to join the EU. On the occasion of a conference in Brussels last Friday on the ten years of the Dayton Accord which put an end to the war in Bosnia, the EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, said that the EU Member States were to “reward” Macedonia by granting it the official status of EU candidate state recommended by the Commission. Solana said that they were committed to a certain group of countries and could not fail even though the “mood” of the EU was not really one of enlargement at the moment. He recalled that this status did not involve beginning membership talks right away.