Appendix: reports on Council meetings
held during a recess
When the House is sitting, Departments make written
Statements after each meeting of the Council of Ministers reporting
on the Council meeting and on the activities of UK Ministers in
it. However, for Council meetings taking place when the House
is in recess we ask Departments to write to us instead. Reply
concerning meetings during (and just before and after) the summer
recess are published below.
Summary of the Informal Meeting of Defence Ministers
and the EDA Steering Board Meeting at Levi, Finland. 2-3 October
2006.
Informal Meeting of EU Defence Ministers
The first session covered operations.
I raised the EDA's Long Term Vision document, commending
it as an excellent summary of the common challenges we faced.
I stressed that the document was relevant to all our discussions
in Levi, not just the EDA Steering Board.
In the discussions that followed, there was broad
consensus that the military mission in Bosnia has almost been
completed and that we should continue to shift the focus to police
and judicial reform. It was agreed that Ministers would aim to
make decisions on force levels in Operation ALTHEA at the November
GAERC.
The NATO Secretary General praised EU/NATO cooperation
in Bosnia and stressed the need to develop similar co-operation
elsewhere, including Kosovo and Darfur, to manage the growing
demands on the shared, single set of forces.
Dr Solana emphasised the importance of the EU supporting
the Darfur Peace Agreement by continuing to assist the African
Union Mission in the Sudan to the end of the year and working
to get the Government of Sudan to agree to the transfer of the
AU mission to the UN. I strongly supported this, underlining the
need to mobilize international support to persuade Khartoum.
In the second working session we discussed the development
of Military Capabilities. Dr Solana, noting that the EU Battlegroup
concept was due to reach Full Operational Capability in January,
said that Battlegroups needed to be ready to deploy, and we needed
to be ready to take decisions rapidly, both nationally and in
Brussels.
The NATO Secretary General briefed on work in NATO,
including for the Riga Summit, and underlined the need for close
EU/NATO cooperation, on capabilities as for operations. I and
a number of other Ministers supported his message on the importance
of EU/NATO links. I highlighted again the capability challenge
we faced, as summarised by the EDA's Long Term Vision document
and supported Dr Solana's emphasis on the Battlegroup initiative
and highlighted strategic airlift as a key capability shortfall.
In the third session, Germany, said that in their
Presidency they would continue the work to improve civil-military
coordination started under the UK presidency in 2005, with a special
focus on Kosovo. Discussions also stressed the need for EU, NATO,
the UN and other organisations to work together in Afghanistan
using the full range of civilian and military instruments to support
the Afghan government and people.
The fourth working session concerned Lebanon and
the Middle East. Dr Solana underlined the engagement of EU Member
States in UNIFIL. The Prime Minister of Lebanon had asked Europeans
to help support the Lebanese Armed Forces, and Ministers were
informed that a Secretariat mission was ready to visit. This was
widely supported. The Commission said they had £6 million
to fund advice. The importance of EU political support to UNIFIL
and the Government of Lebanon was also stressed.
During the final session, on DR Congo, Dr Solana
set out the positive impact so far of the EUFOR operation; he
noted that there were a number of strands of EU action in DR Congo
we would need to develop (eg security sector reform) after the
elections.
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