EU discusses DRC force
2006-03-06 09:56
Innsbruck - European defence ministers will try to finalise on Monday a mission to help the Democratic Republic of Congo through the June elections, despite widespread reluctance to get involved.
The two-day informal meeting in Innsbruck, Austria - which starts at around 13:00 - is also expected to reveal whether there is enough support to create a common budget for defence research; the first fund of its kind.
With the DRC preparing its first free and fair elections in four decades, the ministers are to decide whether to mobilise up to 1 250 troops with a rapid reaction force, or to limit the operation to a few hundred peacekeepers.
The local, provincial, legislative and presidential elections are a milestone for the DRC as it emerges from a war that has killed some four million people since 1998 and left around 1.6 million others homeless.
The EU mission, requested by the United Nations, is also important because it embodies much of what the 25-member Union wants to achieve in defence terms, as it tries to create a defence identity distinct from Nato.
Led by Britain and France, and to a lesser extent Germany, the EU has sought to mould its forces into streamlined, fast-moving battlegroups of around 1 500 troops capable of being quickly deployed to the world's hot spots.
But despite stated ambitions, volunteers for the Congo mission have been hard to come by. Britain refuses to take part, as does Italy, and France says it led the last DRC-linked mission two years ago.
Six countries are reported to have shown interest so far: Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, along with France and Germany, which now appears likely to get the leadership job by default.
The EU's reluctance to commit resources is also weighing on the hopes of the European Defence Agency (EDA) to set up a common defence research fund.
On Tuesday, the defence ministers will try to better define what goals the fund might serve and what size budget it would need to achieve them.
For the moment though, many member states prefer to club together on individual defence projects rather than pour money into a fund that could prove less efficient than their individual budgets.
Other issues up for discussion under the chairmanship of current EU president Austria - a neutral country - include the Union's role in Sudan's troubled Darfur province.
Austria also wants to generate debate on the way the military and civilian organisations interact to deal with crises such as natural disasters.