Paris, 14 May 2008 – A delegation from the Defence Committee of the European Security and Defence Assembly/WEU Assembly visited the Operation Headquarters of EUFOR Tchad/RCA at Mont Valérien outside Paris on 7 May.

The EUFOR Tchad/RCA operation, led by the European Union in the Darfur border region, was launched by the Council of the European Union on 28 January 2008 in the framework of the European security and defence policy, acting on the legal basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1778 (2007) of 25 September 2007. The mission, whose mandate extends to mid-March 2009, reached initial operational capacity on 15 March 2008. 14 EU member states are contributing forces on the ground and 22 states are represented at Mont Valérien. Some 3 700 troops are involved in the operation.

EUFOR Tchad/RCA is a bridging operation with the following objectives:
– to contribute to protecting civilians in danger, particularly refugees and displaced persons;
– to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and the free movement of humanitarian personnel;
– to contribute to protecting UN personnel, facilities, installations and equipment and to ensuring the security and freedom of movement of its staff and UN and associated personnel.

The delegation was received by General Boguslaw PACEK (Poland), Deputy to the Operation Commander, General Patrick NASH (Ireland), who was accompanying the High Representative Javier SOLANA on a mission to Chad.

In a very detailed presentation, which included the background to the organisational set-up, Colonel McNAMARA (Ireland) illustrated the complexities of this operation whose theatre is 2 000 kilometres from Douala (Cameroon), the landing point for equipment arriving from Europe.

The roads in the area of operations in the south-east of Chad will be cut off after the beginning of the rainy season at the end of this month, making this operation even more complicated and, given the lack of infrastructure, requiring a large air fleet, including transport helicopters.

The delegation was very impressed with how the Headquarters was running the operation which had gone according to schedule from the time the EU joint action had been decided on (28 January 2008).

The Assembly will examine a Defence Committee report on this operation at its forthcoming plenary session in June. Mr Rouquet, as Rapporteur, welcomed the information they had been given.

Mr Henderson was able to use the opportunity to see how the Operation Headquarters was organised to gather information for an ongoing report on “European Union operational chains of command”.

These two reports are due to go before the Assembly at its plenary session which will take place from Tuesday 3 to Thursday 5 June at the Palais d’Iéna in Paris.