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Overseas Missions.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 16 June 2004

Wednesday, 16 June 2004

Questions (55)

Ciarán Cuffe

Question:

88 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Defence if he will report on the two-day seminar in Dublin in May 2004 in which the chief of staff of the Defence Forces (details supplied), hosted a meeting on peacekeeping co-operation between the EU and the UN; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17917/04]

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Written answers

The Irish Presidency of the European Union was mandated to take forward implementation of the EU-UN joint declaration of 24 September 2003 on crisis management. In that context, Ireland as EU Presidency hosted a two-day seminar, on 11 and 12 May last, in Dublin. The theme of the seminar was "Synergy between the UN and EU Military Crisis Management".

The seminar was aimed at military and civilian personnel engaged at the politico-strategic level in the area of military crisis management operations.

The seminar covered the following aspects of military crisis management operations: parameters for operations; capacity building for operations; rapid response and effective operations.

I was pleased to address the seminar on some key issues regarding the ongoing progress of ESDP and to have the opportunity to meet with participants.

Keynote speeches were given by Mr. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, UN Under-Secretary-General, department of peacekeeping operations, and Mr. Pieter Feith, Deputy Director-General for Politico-Military Affairs in the EU Council Secretariat.

Participants included representatives from EU member states, the EU, UN and OSCE, the EU Institute of Security Studies, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Irish universities, the Institute for European Affairs, members of the Defence Forces and officials of both the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs.

The seminar's objective was to explore possible means to enhance the synergy between the European Union and the United Nations in military crisis management. During our Presidency, discussions had been held at official level between the Presidency, the EU and the UN. As a result of those discussions with the UN, an agreed Presidency paper entitled "EU-UN Co-operation in Military Crisis Management Operations" will be presented to the European Council on 17 and 18 June, outlining the basis for further work on developing closer co-operation between the EU and UN in crisis management.

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