Paris, 20 December, 2006 – The European Union (EU) should send a new stabilisation assistance mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) involving the European Gendarmerie Force, the Assembly agreed on Wednesday.

A report, entitled “European Union operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - reply to the annual report of the Council” and endorsed unanimously, also urged an increase in the resources of the EUPOL and EUSEC police and armed forces reform and training missions, an extension of their mandate and better coordination at a local level between the European Commission and Council of ministers.

Presenting the report for the Defence Committee, Ignacio Cosidó Gutiérrez (Spain, Federated Group) said the recent EUFOR RD Congo mission could be summed up in three words: successful, important and useful. But it also produced several lessons for the future, he added. Improved coordination between the United Nations (UN) and the EU was necessary to ensure errors such as the mission’s withdrawal before the newly elected DRC President took office are not repeated, he said. Enhancing the EU’s political decision-making capability was probably as important as enhancing its military capability in order to permit more rapid and effective action and greater leeway for the military command to react to contingencies in the field, he added.

After a lively discussion, the Assembly called for improvement to forces’ efficiency on the ground by harmonising the rules of engagement of the national units being deployed and by removing national caveats.

Addressing the Assembly during the debate on the report, André Flahaut, Belgian Defence Minister, stressed that EU work on Africa should be conducted in partnership with the Africans. “The Europeans would be making a mistake if they tried to impose their model on Africa” and other regions, he said.