EU to take the lead in Macedonia in March
The European Union will take over NATO's Task Force Fox mission in Macedonia next March. The EU Political Security Committee will meet with their colleagues from the North Atlantic Committee at ambassador level today, Wednesday, to discuss the matter in Brussels.
"Essentially there are no real problems for the transition" a NATO official said, "we are working on technical aspects with experts from both sides, such as legal advice and so on".
Still some arrangements to be done
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There are still some arrangements to be done in the fields of command structure, issues concerning security classifications or operation plans to reach the timeframe in March. If these are not cleared, things could be delayed until June.
At the end of January, member state Foreign Ministers discussed the EU Joint Action. The EU crisis management force will consist of 250 troops under the command of the NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral Rainer Feist. For this reason a special Headquarter will be established at NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe (SHAPE), next to Mons, Belgium.
NATO supports EU crises management capabilities
NATO supports the development of the EU crisis management capabilities. However, NATO leaders are realising that the EU is becoming a security actor in its own right. In the 1999 Washington Declaration, they expressed their readiness "to define and adopt the necessary arrangements for essential parts of NATO's military assets and capabilities to be made available for EU-led operations in response to crisis situations in which NATO as a whole would not be engaged militarily."
But the overall philosophy of 1996 Berlin decision still rules: EU-led operations using NATO assets are separable but not separate. These are the difficulties to be solved in the coming weeks.
The political decision making process is under way since the EU-NATO Declaration on European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was signed at the end of the EU Copenhagen Summit on 16 December 2002. It is the basic document for close co-operation of the two organisations.