Paris, 5 June - The WEU Assembly has urged member nations to adopt a series of measures to improve working conditions for troops overseas and for their families, also the way external operations themselves are funded.

A report, submitted on behalf of the Defence Committee by Doug Henderson (United Kingdom, Socialist Group) and Meritxell Batet Lamaña (Spain/Socialist Group) on Tuesday, said personnel deployment should normally not exceed four to six months, a minimum of 18 months should elapse between missions, a sliding scale of pay to reward troops deployed on repetitive external operations should be introduced and staff pay and conditions should be harmonised across participant countries wherever possible. Families should also be given more information about their relations serving abroad. The Athena mechanism for sharing the financing of EU peace missions should be improved to give a more even spread among nations and land forces´ equipment should be better maintained.
The report covered five countries: France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, and is to be followed by a final document after meetings with the German and Polish defence ministries, Mr Henderson said.

He pointed out that, contrary to a common view, troop morale is no lower now than it was 20 years ago when military responsibilities were fewer. There was “an absolute consistency” of high morale among armies at the time of deployment, he maintained, but problems could arise at subsequent deployments, when troops might become frustrated or cynical about the mission they were involved in. Personnel levels were sometimes insufficient which meant troops spent longer in the field than initially planned.

Mr Henderson acknowledged that troop pay and conditions were hard to compare among WEU member countries, and therefore difficult to harmonise. He added that common funding could be hampered by lack of political agreement on external military operations. “Most European countries will contribute only where they support (an operation) politically,” he said.

Mrs Batet Lamaña added that there should be greater recourse to community funding mechanisms to permit the launch of more extensive and more effective external operations.