The EUFOR RCA operation is launched... with a lack of European breath
(BRUSSELS2) It is by a simple tweet of the Council of the EU (*) that we officially learned on Tuesday (April 1) - it was not a fish! - the launch of the EUFOR RCA military operation. The decision having been adopted by written procedure (by way of silence as the readers of the Club already know). We have known a more glorious launch (*). The decision must appear in the official journal shortly. It's for form. Because this decision is effective immediately, the day of adoption and not the day of publication in the OJ, which is rather rare at European level. Little consolation! Here is the text:
Defense Europe is not the addition of national visions of security
As Dany Cohn-Bendit confided today to a few journalists, including B2, "on the Central African Republic, everyone agreed to do something, to rebuild the State, but we did not manage to have a common, European vision of our security. (...) Everyone understands that with some 1,5 million soldiers, Europe has a problem. (...) It will one day be necessary to understand that European security cannot be the simple sum of national visions and forces. What happened with (EUFOR RCA) proves it. »
(*) For an operation that responds to a real need in the field, it's a bit of a short launch. Admittedly, a press conference is scheduled for tomorrow at the EU-Africa summit. But we could have expected more for a military operation which is the first launched since 2008 and operation Atalanta (if we exclude the 2 military training missions, EUTM Somalia and EUTM Mali) and which is desired by many international partners, starting with the Africans and the UN. This in fact reflects above all the very weak commitment of the High Representative of the EU, Catherine Ashton, on this dossier. The Central African Republic is not really among its priorities...
