Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


RECENT INITIATIVES TO DEVELOP NON-MILITARY INTERVENTION UNITS

  EUROPEAN UNION

Paragraph 56 of the conclusions of the Cologne Summit held in June 1999, states:

  "The European Council invites the Council (General Affairs) to deal thoroughly with all discussions on aspects of security, with a view to enhancing and better co-ordinating the Unions and Member States non-military crisis response tools. Deliberations might include the possibility of a stand-by capacity to pool national civil resources and expertise complementing other initiatives within the common foreign and security policy."

UK GOVERNMENT

  The UK government announced on 25 June that it was making British peacekeeping troops available to the UN. These troops would be able to go anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. Besides soldiers, aircraft, engineers and medical facilities, the UK contribution to the UN will also include civilian police officers who, according to Robin Cook, "are playing an increasingly important role in peacekeeping."

US GOVERNMENT

  In a speech on 23 July to the OSCE Reinforced Permanent Council, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ronald Asmus emphasised the need to strengthen the OSCE's capability to play the role envisaged for it under the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris. He said:

  "It is in this spirit that we have proposed the creation of an OSCE civilian rapid response capability or REACT. Rapid deployment of skilled civilian expertise is essential to effective conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. We must commit to make national contingents of experts, trained to OSCE standards and specifications, available in such OSCE functional areas as democratization, human rights, policing, and elections. These teams could be used as surge capacity in crises, rapid deployment when political agreements are reached, and crisis prevention . . . Another tool is strengthened policing capabilities that will allow the OSCE to be our organisation of choice for appropriate missions in the OSCE region."

  In addition, US Secretary of State for Defense, William Cohen, said in a press conference on 10 July:

  "As we've pointed out on so many occasions in the past, peacekeeping is not a primary mission, certainly of the US forces, and I suspect that is the case for many of the other NATO countries as well. Peacekeeping involves a different type of training, and capabilities. What we need to do is to have more police on call, ready to deploy to Kosovo, as they were required to be deployed into Bosnia; we need much more in the way of civil implementation than is currently taking place."


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2000
Prepared 7 June 2000