The French ambassador to the COPS confirms: preparing the post-Eufor is urgent

(BRUXELLES2) Christine Roger, the French representative to the Political and Security Committee (COPS) was before the Defense sub-committee of the European Parliament, on July 16, to explain the main challenges of the French presidency of the EU in terms of defense and security. On after Eufor in Chad, she confirmed (as had also been detailed in J. Solana's reports to Ban Ki Moon) that it would be necessary to "convince" the Chadian authorities and the UN of the advisability of the latter taking over from the EU after the expiry of the mandate of Eufor, on March 15, 2009. One of the solutions - she mentioned - could be that "European troops remain in place, under the UN flag". It is therefore a question of convincing the United Nations of the "need to take over". Which should be facilitated by the logistics already in place by Eufor.

At this same meeting, the ambassador also returned to the EU intervention capabilities. She thus wanted to deny the possible deployment by the EU in a large-scale operation of 60.000 soldiers. The EU has more of a vocation for "limited operations, integrating the civil and military dimension", or, again, rapid reaction operations using tactical groups (or Battle Groups). On this point, she acknowledged - as MEPs pointed out - that the deployment of Battle Groups is "particularly difficult" because Member States have different views on the idea "of using these groupings, drawn up for a certain concept, for other purposes. As for the Eurocorps, it is not very usable to listen to it. Its "very heterogeneous" side - with very different rules of engagement and the multinational consensus necessary to deploy it - make it a "hardly usable" (same observation for the European Gendarmerie).