Brussels, 14/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 12 February, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a decision amending the financial management mechanism for the joint costs of European Union military and defence operations (Athena). This amendment to the 2004 decision establishing this mechanism relaxes certain conditions and extends it, in some cases, to a series of costs that had not originally been taken into account: - work relating to troop disembarkation, the protection of static forces, storage installations, parking lots, technical support; - multinational headquarters of EU operational forces deployed in the operations zone; - data acquisition (satellite images, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance of the operations theatre, including air-ground surveillance; human intelligence); - the purchase or the hiring during operations of specific equipment not foreseen but essential for conducting the operation, in so far as the equipment purchased is not repatriated at the end of the mission; - medical installations for 1, 2 and 3 theatre roles; - and other capabilities essential at theatre level (de-mining for operational needs, CBRN protection, storage installation and fuel supplies; storage and destruction of weapons and ordnance collected in the zone of operations. (oj)