30/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - In her speech to the Bled Strategic Forum, in Slovenia on 28 August, External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the EU would very soon start implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans agreed with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Speaking of Peter Semneby's appointment as EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, she stressed the policy's potential to help support conflict resolution in the region and gave assurances that the EU would continue to support the Joint Control Commission for South Ossetia, would stay involved in confidence building and rehabilitation in Abkhazia, and would stand ready to respond to the needs assessment mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, “as soon as that mission is able to depart”. She expressed worry over the lack of progress in settling “frozen conflicts”, and deplored the “worrying trends” shown over the last few months, particularly the fact that “defence expenditure in the region is going through the roof”, and “inflammatory rhetoric” is shaping public opinion “in a counterproductive direction”.