Train without equipping! It's like pouring water without a glass
(B2) Speaking in Malta, during the parliamentary assembly on the European defense policy, the French deputy (socialist) Joaquim Pueyo did not mince his words on the action of the European Union in the Sahel. A subject he knows well having been to Bamako last year. to assess the EUTM Mali and EUCAP Sahel Mali missions whose objective is the training of the army and the Malian internal security forces.
A challenging legal context
« Even if the involvement of their staff is to be welcomed, these two missions and in particular EUTM Mali are carried out in a legal context which should challenge us. The EU cannot legally finance military expenditure. It trains Malian soldiers but cannot provide them with the weapons and ammunition necessary for their training “explained the member of the Orne.
Training without equipment
« Worse still, once trained, they join a Malian army without equipment, the Malian state not having the means to buy them. Mali, but also Chad or Niger, want weapons, ammunition, but also means of transmission, armored vehicles, night vision equipment, etc. in order to fight, with the French forces of Operation Barkhane, the terrorist groups that threaten them and us. And Europe is unable to provide them »
Europe unable even to pay for first aid kits!
“Without going so far as to supply arms and ammunition, it seems to me necessary that the Union finance certain expenditure having a military purpose. To take just one instructive example, the first aid kits provided to the Malian soldiers within the framework of EUTM Mali had to be paid for by... Luxembourg! explains the MP.
A CBSD initiative below the stakes
A problem that we know well at the level of the European Union. This is the whole meaning of the initiative, called CBSD (1), proposed in July 2016, and currently under discussion before the European Parliament. It aims to allow the financing of a minimum of (non-lethal) equipment for the armed forces. But this initiative is still coming up against some resistance, sometimes quite surreal, as the latest debates in the European Parliament have proven (read: No confusion, CBSD is not subject to the “DAC” criteria). And, according to deputy Pueyo, it is insufficient. “The CBSD initiative is a first response but it has not yet been implemented. Unfortunately, it will remain below the challenges and demands of our African partners. »
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(1) Capacity building in support of security and development. An English acronym untranslatable into everyday French. I offer a coffee to the one who offers me a French translation understandable in common sense!
