13 The EU and the Sahel: EUCAP Sahel
Niger
| (35390)
—
—
| Council Decision amending Decision 2012/392/CFSP on the European Union CSDP Mission in Niger (EUCAP Sahel Niger)
|
| Legal base
| Articles28, 42(4) and 43(2) TEU; unanimity
|
| Department
| Foreign and Commonwealth Office
|
| Basis of consideration
| Minister's letter of 28 March 2014
|
| Previous Committee Reports
| HC 83-xviii (2013-14), chapter 16 (23 October 2013); also see (35170) —: HC 83-xii (2013-14), chapter 22 (17 July 2013); also see (35108) —: HC 83-viii (2013-14), chapter 21 (3 July 2013) and (34063) —: HC 86-viii (2012-13), chapter 18 (11 July 2012); and (35009) —: HC 83-viii (2013-14), chapter 18 (3 July 2013)
|
| Discussion in Council
| Before 31 October 2013
|
| Committee's assessment
| Politically important
|
| Committee's decision
| Cleared; further information requested (decision reported on 23 October 2013); further information provided
|
Background
13.1 Council Decision 2012/392/CFSP
established an EU civilian Common Security and Defence (CSDP)
Mission for Niger to build the capacity of Nigerien security forces
to fight terrorism and organised crime. EUCAP Sahel Niger was
launched in July 2012, and is mandated for two years until July
2014. The budget for the first year of the mission was set at
€8,700,000. The background and full details are set out
in our 2012 Report under reference.[44]
It has five main tasks:
— advise and assist in the
implementation of the security dimension of the Nigerien Strategy
for Security and Development at national level (assessing gaps
in capability and capacity and designing a training strategy to
address them; working to develop and upgrade the interoperability
and coordination mechanism within the "Service Central
de luttecontre le terrorisme" (SCLCT) to fight terrorism
by providing equipment and training;
— support the development
of regional and international coordination in the fight against
terrorism and organised crime, in particular by working with the
"CollègeSahélien de Sécurité"
and other related organisations;
— develop and implement adequate
criminal investigation training programmes utilising a "train
the trainer" approach in subjects such as forensics, interview
techniques, evidence handling, police tactics, human rights and
the rule of law;
— support the development
of Nigerien Security Forces resilience by developing a Human Resources
strategy and providing training in management issues; and
— contribute to the identification,
planning and implementation of projects in the security field.
13.2 The budget for the first year of
the mission was set at €8,700,000. That was extended in
July 2013 until the end of October, because EUCAP Sahel Niger
had underperformed.[45]At
that time, the Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington) said that,
once the Status of Mission Agreement (SOMA)[46]
was in place, local buy-in could be expected to improve, together
with the ability of the Mission to carry out its tasks.
13.3 This present Council Decision set
out a new budget of €6.5 million to cover the remainder of
the mandate, from 1 November 2013 to July 2014.
13.4 The Minister said that, since his
earlier Explanatory Memoranda, events in the Sahel region, particularly
in Mali, had moved forward positively; and that in Niger, too,
the EUCAP-Sahel mission was at last starting to deliver. This
welcome development was due to a number of factors. The SOMA
had now been signed, the Mission was now starting to reap the
benefits of clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and local
buy-in was starting to improve. The Mission was now focussing
its efforts on the provision of equipment, and on training in
the conduct of operations and criminal investigation capacities
as well as supporting the development of mechanisms for interoperability
between actors involved in the fight against terrorism and organised
crime. Operationally, the mission was now starting to deliver
(see our previous Report for full details).
13.5 The Minister then turned to what
he described as the Committee's "interest in issues around
benchmarking and progression/achievements of the mission",
as follows:
"The Operational Plan (OPlan)
for the mission sets out the objectives and tasks for the mission
and the benchmarks by which the mission will be evaluated. For
each task, the OPlan sets out the current position, the "Objectively
Verifiable Indicator" or the position the EU would like to
attain by the end of the mission and how it will measure the progress
made.
"For example, one of the tasks
of the mission, set out under the OPlan, is to support the Nigerien
Authorities to put in place a national intelligence model for
criminal investigations, which can be rolled out to all intelligence
functions in due course. Currently, the intelligence bureaux operate
very separately and there is little confidence between the agencies.
There is no centralised organisation or model for criminal intelligence.
The technology to manage intelligence and the training capacity
is very limited. The mission has identified the development and
adoption of interservice accords for the exchange of criminal
intelligence as the principal way the mission can contribute to
this task. The mission will monitor progress in this area through
regular evaluation and analysis of the exchange of intelligence
and the initiatives in operational cooperation."
13.6 The Minister also agreed with the
thrust of the Committee's comments in its report of 3 July: "the
Niger mission was not meeting our legitimate expectations. It
had been slow to establish itself, slow to begin delivering activity
and slow to engage with its hosts in Niamey".
13.7 The Minister then continues as
follows:
"We took action to address
this unsatisfactory situation. We told the External Action Service
and key partners plainly that we were unhappy with the mission.
In part as a result of that intervention, changes to the direction
of the mission have been made. These changes have fed rapidly
through to a more activist and organised approach on the ground.
"We have also helped the EEAS
to revise the mission's budget. The UK's rigorous analysis identified
savings of around 10% in operational budgets. We also queried
the project budget, as we feel the mission will need to perform
exceedingly well to deliver all the projects it has set out. However,
the new leadership has said that it wishes to work to challenging
objectives, which is all to the good as we do want to see energetic
delivery. To maintain oversight of the project work we have insisted
on a review of spending in four months."
13.8 With regard to "the bigger
picture", the Minister then said:
"My overall assessment is that
the changes which needed to be made in Niamey have been made and
the mission is now on track to deliver against clear goals. Delivery
in Niger is strong and the mission's emerging thinking about regional
approaches to the continuing instability in the Sahel is pragmatic.
That does not of course excuse the fact that time was wasted and
resources mismanaged in the first six or nine months of the mission's
operation.
"A key lesson to be learned
from the Niger process is that rushed planning leads to poor mission
performance. The EEAS believed that the conflation of conceptual
and operational planning could be managed; that assessment proved
to be over-optimistic. Since it has become plain that accelerated
planning in Niger was counter-productive, I have acted to prevent
recurrences. I applied the brakes to the EUBAM mission in Libya
and instructed officials to ensure that the launch of a civilian
mission in Mali — which was envisaged by an EEAS options
paper published before the summer — was delayed until proper
planning was complete. The EEAS has not yet reverted with a new
options paper. I am expecting the options paper to set out plans
to develop civilian Malian security capabilities, in parallel
with the military enhancement being delivered by EUTM.
"On a separate matter, you
may be interested to hear that a complete review of the process
of selection of all civilian CSDP Heads of Mission is underway.
The review usefully allows us to raise a number of our own concerns
about the skills which CSDP leaders need. We are pressing to ensure
that selection is competence-based: that Heads are appointed only
when they have project and human resource management expertise,
as well as geographical experience."
13.9 Looking ahead, the Minister said
that work over the next three months on the "probable future
track of CSDP work in the Sahel" was likely to include a
decision on whether to renew the mandate of EUCAP Sahel Niger
(and also whether to grant a second mandate to EUTM Mali and whether
to agree to the launch of another civilian mission in Mali).
Our assessment
13.10 The Minister's very helpful Explanatory
Memorandum and accompanying letter demonstrated, not for the first
time, the leading, sometimes solitary and commendable role he
and his officials have had in driving down the cost of CSDP missions.
13.11 Despite the welcome indications
of progress, it had nonetheless taken a year to reach this point.
Moreover, as the Minister noted, the mission was still seriously
under-staffed. Also, his comments about funding for equipment
not being sufficiently tapped, that both the mission and the EEAS
could be working more closely with other actors, and that there
was soon to be a change, suggested that the mission had suffered
from inadequate leadership — this being borne out by the
news that there was to be a complete review of the process of
selection of all civilian CSDP Heads of Mission. We agreed with
the Minister that project and human resource management expertise,
as well as geographical experience, should be pre-conditions for
selection, and expected to see that those "boxes" had
been "ticked" when proposals for future missions were
put forward.
13.12 We agreed with the Minister that
rushed planning led to poor mission performance. However, both
the Niger process and elsewhere had also shown that, in the absence
of the clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and clear local
buy in, time was wasted and resources were also mismanaged.
13.13 Though appreciative of the Minister's
offer to discuss future work with his officials, we reminded him
that we can only operate on the basis of public documents. We
therefore asked to him to keep us informed in writing as these
processes took shape, and to ensure that any proposals for a new
mission and/or for mandate extensions were submitted for scrutiny
in time for any questions arising to be pursued with him and,
if necessary, debated, before any Council Decisions were adopted.
13.14 In the meantime, we cleared the
Council Decision.[47]
The Minister's letter of 28 March 2014
13.15 In the latest of a series of helpful
letters, the Minister now writes to update the Committee on future
plans for EUCAP Sahel Niger, following release of the Strategic
Review, which he says was issued at the beginning of March.
13.16 The Minister says that in recent
months there have been signs of improvement, and continues as
follows:
"The mission is now delivering
againstits mandate. The President's support for a Comité
de Pilotage (Steering Board) has been instrumental in directing
how different ministries and services work with EUCAP to implement
reforms. Training activities are currently working well. EUCAP
has trained over 2,500 members of the security forces, armed forces,
civil service and judiciary. The mission's work on improving
the services' human resource and forensic capabilities has been
particularly successful.
"EUCAP has been praised by
third countries, including the US, for its work in co-ordinating
wider international action in Niger, and uncovering duplication
of requests for support; this particular work has been led by
a UK-funded secondee. And the mission is seeking to build sustainability
into its activity by creating a training cycle within the services,
including a pool of mission-trained Nigerien personnel guaranteed
to stay in post as trainers for a period of years. The project
cell has also carried out refurbishment of training centres of
the gendarmerie and military logistics school to increase the
efficiency of training activity.
"However, there is more to
do. Niger remains a fragile democracy in an increasingly volatile
region. It is prone to the criminal smuggling of weapons, drugs
and weapons. Problems in Mali have spilled over into Niger; attacks
in Agadez and Arlit have brought home to the Nigerien authorities
that they too are now under threat. In Nigeria to the south,
Boko Haram's campaign of violence continues, with large numbers
of people being killed in often unreported incidents. Boko Haram
is known to use the border region between Nigeria and Niger as
a safe haven to rest and regroup. Meanwhile to the north, Libya
remains volatile and its border with Niger porous. Nigerien elections
are due in 2015-2016, and a visible EU presence at least until
then would increase the chances of a smooth poll."
13.17 The Minister notes that he is
providing the Strategic Review for information only:
"It is being provided to the
Committee under the Government's authority and arrangements agreed
between the Government and the Committee for the sharing of EU
documents carrying a limité marking. It cannot
be published, nor can it be reported on in any way which would
bring detail contained in the document into the public domain."
13.18 He then says:
"The Review sees the need to
continue to support Niger in the development of its capability
to deal with national and regional security challenges and recommends
extending the mandate for a further two years from 17 July. The
mission will remain roughly the same size, will retain its current
structure and will cost a similar amount to now. However it recommends
some small changes to the tasks to be carried out by the mission:
a) "Reducing focus on the
original top-down approach to reform, but working further on inter-operability
and on training programmes: Despite the difficulties persuading
the heads of the three security forces to develop a National Security
strategy, joint central bodies and national action plans, the
EEAS has concluded that these should remain the Mission's overarching
ambitions, albeit tempered to suit the reality on the ground.
They therefore propose a political campaign to lobby for implementation
of this strategy, but that the mission itself should pursue inter-operability
and sustainability at the operational level through joint training,
including train-the-trainer work. A particular success of the
mission is the training support it gives to the PC Mixtes,
joint operational teams composed of members of the different services.
The mission also would continue to pursue more limited reforms
through the Comité de Pilotage, principally around
human resources management.
b) "Continued regional focus,
but curtailing the Liaison Officer slots in Mali and Mauritania:
The Strategic Review notes the Nigerien proposal to establish
a regional CT training centre in Niamey, and proposes that EUCAP
should facilitate the co-ordination of regional projects to help
Niger tackle terrorism and organised crime. But the EEAS believes
that with plans moving ahead for a new civilian Mission in Mali,
and the lack of a need for CSDP in Mauritania, the Liaison Officer
posts in Bamako and Nouakchott should be curtailed. Instead, it
is proposed that security expertise be based in the EU Delegations
in Bamako and Nouakchott, and outside the realm of CSDP.
c) "Borders: Given Niger's
location, the porous nature of its borders, and the importance
that some EU Member States place on border concerns, the Strategic
Review concludes that the mission should increase its expertise
on border security. EUCAP currently is mandated to employ one
expert in this field, a slot which has only recently been filled.
Niger's northern frontier with Libya is largely unpatrolled and
passes through ungoverned territory. The Nigerien authorities
are engaging with Libyan authorities and the Heads of Mission
of EUCAP and the CSDP Mission in Libya (EUBAM), are considering
how they might best collaborate on border work."
Conclusion
13.19 We are grateful to the Minister
for this further informative update. It contrasts strongly with
the one on EUCAP Nestor, which is prompted by the promulgation
of a similar EEAS Review. There, the Minister provides nothing
like the same degree of insight into the Review's approach.
13.20 Here, by contrast, the Minister
has plainly addressed, and continues to address, the Committee's
concerns, especially about ensuring local buy-in before the mission
begins; our "interest in issues around benchmarking and progression/achievements
of the mission"; and our support for the process of ensuring
that Mission leaders are properly qualified for the job.
13.21 Nor does he demonstrate that,
during the EUCAP Nestor review process, anyone gripped the key
issues, which include all the factors that blighted EUCAP Sahel
Niger until they were properly tackled, in the way that they were
gripped here, viz:
"We told the External Action
Service and key partners plainly that we were unhappy with the
mission. In part as a result of that intervention, changes to
the direction of the mission have been made."
13.22 That is why, in that instance,
we have asked him to provide a better update on EUCAP Nestor,
which draws on the way the EUCAP Sahel Niger process has been
handled.
13.23 We also look forward to hearing
further from the Minister about EUCAP Sahel Niger in due course.
In the meantime, we draw this further information to the attention
of the House because of its interest in threats to stability in
West Africa and the EU's endeavours to tackle them.
44 See headnote: (34063) -: HC 86-viii (2012-13),
chapter 18 (11 July 2012). Back
45
See headnote: (35170) -: HC 83-xii (2013-14), chapter 22 (17
July 2013). Back
46
Status of forces agreements (SOFAs) and status of mission agreements
(SOMAs) are bilateral or multilateral treaties that define the
legal position of military forces and civilian personnel deployed
by one or more states or by an international organization in the
territory of another state with the latter's consent. Back
47
See headnote: HC 83-xviii (2013-14), chapter 16 (23 October 2013). Back
|
