Annan seeks greater EU involvement in UN peacekeeping

DUBLIN Oct 14 (AFP) — The 25-nation European Union needs to play a bigger role in UN peacekeeping operations, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Thursday during a visit to Ireland.

“I want to leave you in no doubt of how important strengthened EU capacities are to the United Nations,” he said in an address on EU-UN cooperation in crisis management at the Forum on Europe at Dublin Castle.

“The EU is in a position to provide specialized skills that our largest troop contributors may not be able to give us, and to deploy more rapidly than we can,” he said.

“The EU and its Member States pay a lot of the UN’s bills, and support our work right across the spectrum. I am deeply grateful for that — but I look to Europe for even more.”

“That’s why I welcome the development of EU capabilities in the context of the European Security and Defense Policy, and the progress that we are making together in the field of crisis management.”

Annan said many people were alive today because of the French-led Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which in turn handed over to a UN operation.

He said Artemis was a model of EU cooperation with the UN, based on the primary role of the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security.

Annan said the UN is facing a surge in demand for peacekeeping and the European Security and Defence Policy must not mean a weakening of the commitment of EU member states to provide traditional blue-helmeted troops for UN missions.

“In the last nine months, with five new operations either deployed or on the drawing board, the demand on our peacekeeping has jumped by about 50 percent,” he said.

“We have around 56,000 troops and military observers deployed today. But we desperately need another 30,000 of them — not to mention many more civilian personnel, both police and others,” he said.

“Yet today, less than one in 10 UN peacekeepers is from an EU country. And in Africa, where most of our peacekeepers are deployed, the proportion drops to less than one in 20.”

He hoped other European nations would follow the lead of Ireland which is bucking the trend with its troop contingent in Liberia.

“The presence of troops from the range of UN Member States sends a critical signal that the international community is determined and united in the pursuit of peace.”

Dealing with the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, Annan stressed that much more help was needed.

“Darfur is an enormous region and a huge number of people are suffering. The humanitarian effort needs more money,” he said.

“And the African Union needs concrete support, including logistics, equipment and financing, as well as political pressure on the parties. Every country and organization that can help must do so now.”