Brussels, 30/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Union's EUSEC mission, which aims to reform the security sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has to be strengthened. This was the opinion given on 27 November to a European Parliament security and defence sub-committee by the small ad hoc delegation that went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the beginning of November. The chairman of the parliamentary committee, German Christian Democrat, Karl von Wogau, who led the delegation, said he felt “a certain discouragement” at EUSEC. Mission personnel, around thirty in total, are two few, given the scale of their task, which covers the whole of the Congo, he explained. They are also faced with “many obstacles” to carrying out their mission effectively, such as the difficulty of ensuring the chain of payments in some remote provinces in the country, due to the limited means of transport. Von Wogau therefore considers it indispensable to bolster this operation. The EU should also help the DRC reform its legal system, which is in complete disarray and contributes to creating a climate of insecurity in the country. This analysis is shared by Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Maria Gomes, who was also back from the visit and who considers that whatever the EU does for reforming the police and army will be useless while “nothing is done to re-establish the legal (Congolese) system, which is completely corrupt”. This possibility is already being considered by the EU, which is expected to decide soon on extending the police mission's mandate in the DRC, EUPOL Kinshasa until June 2007. In the longer term it could envisage integrating EUPOL Kinshasa and EUSEC, whose mandate expires on 30 June 2007, into a wider ESDP mission to which a “judicial” component would be added.
The other major subject of discussion was naturally the EU's EUFOR operation in the DRC, whose mandate expires on 30 November. Although Mr von Wogau considers that EUFOR has accomplished its mission and should withdraw after four months, as established in its mandate (EUROPE 9307), Ms Gomes believes that defining a mandate on a temporary basis, as was the case for EUFOR DRC, is totally “arbitrary” and has nothing to do with what is happening on the ground. According to Gomes, the mission should not be terminated until the electoral process is finished, “because it is often then that the problems begin” and “the troops (European) should have had a mandate to January at least”. The Finnish ambassador to the Political and Security Committee (Cops), Teemu Tanner, who had had just presented an outline of development concerning the European Security and Defence Policy, reaffirmed, nonetheless, that there would not be an extension of the EUFOR mandate to beyond 30 November and that on this date, troops on the ground would no longer be able to use force unless in cases of legitimate self defence or assisting people in danger (EUROPE 9305). Another problem raised by Ms Gomes was the troops stationed in Gabon. The MEP criticised the fact that these troops under French General Christian Damay, commander of the troops on the ground, “often had to call on these troops stationed so far away”, and that this produced needs in terms of transport and problems in the event of a crisis requiring a rapid reaction.