Brussels, 08/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - During the WEU Assembly session in Paris, Günther Platter, Austrian Defence Minister, said on Monday 5 December that his country, which is to take over the rotating EU and WEU rotating presidency in January, plans to improve European civil-military crisis-management missions. Platter said that, although the EU provided 600 troops to assist the victims of the tsunami in South-East Asia, it had proved to be “practically invisible” because of the “rivalry between Member States anxious to get there first, without any regard for coordination”. The future Austrian Presidency will be making proposals for improving the coordination of civil-military operations in the event of natural disasters and for actions conducted in Africa. Austria will above all propose that an officer be appointed to act as liaison between the NATO civil-military cells at SHAPE and the EU military staff, and that a pool of European experts capable of intervening within 24 hours of a disaster will be established to provide assistance and to set up European intervention teams.
The Balkans is also one of the Austrian Presidency's priorities as regards ESDP. “The EU must assume more responsibilities in future, so as to bring the countries in the region closer to Europe”, Platter said. The Austrian minister warned against the temptation to rush the withdrawal of EU forces stationed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
With the adoption of the report by Andrea Manzella (Socialist Group, Italy) on 5 December, the WEU Assembly calls for deepening of ESDP without waiting for the uncertainty now hanging over the fate of the Constitutional Treaty to be removed. It suggests strengthening the role of the EU High Representative for CFSP and setting up a European diplomatic service with a view to greater coherence and visibility in the EU's foreign and security policy. The Assembly states it is convinced that ”the uncertainty now hanging over the fate of the Constitutional Treaty does not affect continuing efforts to carry on the ESDP project, either through cooperation or the structures established pursuant to the existing Treaties, or through arrangements or cooperation falling outside them”. It also hopes to establish “synergy” between the WEU Assembly and the European Parliament in order to “provide parliamentary scrutiny of the ESDP”.
With the adoption, on 6 December in Paris, of the report by Luxembourg Liberal Charles Goerens on peace-keeping in sub-Saharan Africa, the WEU Assembly called for the creation of a Euro-African Peace and Security Fund for improved financing of the crisis-management activities conducted by the African Union (AU). The fund would replace the Africa Peace Facility. Goerens also pressed in favour of setting up a joint military base between the EU and the AU in Central Africa, intended to improve the training of African forces. This idea is s hared by Belgian Minister for Cooperation, Armand De Decker. Preferring the formula “partnership between the EU and Africa” to that of “partnership strategy with Africa”, Goerens stressed that “if we do not manage to give the African Union the means to settle the problems on its continent now, the cost in human lives will be even greater tomorrow”. Said Djinnit, Commissioner for Peace and Security of the African Union Commission, called on the EU to provide the necessary assistance to “give life to the African institutions”. (Source: our Atlantic News newsletter.)