Innsbruck, 07/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - During the informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Innsbruck, EU High Representative for CFSP Javier Solana urged, on 6 March, for a modern crisis-management approach in the world through civilian as well as military missions. With a view to the meeting of the Council of Defence Ministers that will, on 15 May before the European Council to be held on June 15 and 16, be discussing EU intervention in the event of natural disasters using ESDP means, Solana called on Member States to support the effort being made by the Austrian Presidency to develop a real capacity for action using military means and instruments in support of civil protection and humanitarian aid.
Civil-military coordination: During a press conference in Innsbruck on 6 March, the president of the Council of EU Defence Ministers, Günther Platter, urged for better civil-military coordination of EU crisis-management missions, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his view, in particular, a strengthened EU role in Kosovo inevitably means more intensive civil-military cooperation.
Javier Solana told the press in Innsbruck that the EU should have the most modern approach to crisis-management. Experience in the Balkans and the Middle East has clearly shown that the fact of working in sequence, first on the military and then on the civilian front “is not the best approach”, Solana explained, considering it necessary to follow from the very outset the most integrated strategy possible in which both military and civilian components work side by side. He called for planning cells composed of both civil and military elements to be set in place and recalled the creation, in Brussels, of a civil-military unit within the EU Military Staff in which military and civilians are divided between tasks in the most integrated way possible.
EU relief in the event of natural disasters: Günther Platter, Austria's Defence Minister, recalled that in recent months - after the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Pakistan - it has become obvious that EU relief work is not possible without military assistance. He stressed, however, the subsidiary role played by the military in actions where the role of civilians is prevalent. Armed forces must have the necessary capabilities to work rapidly and effectively to help local populations, Mr Platter stressed, adding that military means must be used and the civil-military unit established in Brussels must coordinate such military intervention to provide the most effective humanitarian assistance possible. Javier Solana recalled that civilians are at the fore during relief operations in natural disasters, whereas the military are responsible for logistics and urgent assistance rapidly deployed. These are not, however, military operations in the strictest sense of the word, he stressed.
Addressing ministers, Solana said the earthquake in Pakistan had demonstrated the authentic added value of European aid that includes all the means at its disposal. He repeated that it is now necessary to pass on to deeds and to prepare for this. The principle of complementary use of military assets is now accepted, and, he said, it has already been possible to measure the importance of such capacities during major disasters. It was in one such spirit that he had forwarded his first concrete proposals to the European Council in December 2005 in order to move forward more rapidly, Javier Solana recalled. In his view, efforts being made for emergency transport should be stepped up to support action by the States and the central role of the United Nations (OCHA - Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). Such action would complete and strengthen the action of the European Commission in this field, he said, stressing that it is a sector in which a difference can be made even though military means are used as a complement to civilian means. This “difference can sometimes be measured in terms of lives”, he added. “We must move forward quickly. All the tools are within reach. But the essential part of this effort must be made by the Member States”, the EU Representative for the CFSP said, welcoming the “very generous” French ideas and an “interesting contribution” from the United Kingdom concerning strategic transport.