Paris, 3 June 2008 – Slovenian Defence Minister, Karl Erjavec, has urged stronger cooperation between the European Union (EU) and both the United Nations (UN) and NATO in order to defuse tensions in Kosovo.

Addressing the Assembly on Tuesday 3rd June, towards the close of Slovenia’s six-month EU presidency, Mr Erjavec said there must be “no further delay” in defining the respective competences of the EU’s EULEX mission in Kosovo, which is partially deployed, and the UN’s UNMIK mission. The complementary roles of the EU and NATO should also “be defined at the highest political level to assure an effective and lasting cooperation between the two organisations” in Kosovo and other areas of actual or potential conflict.

In his speech, he pinpointed Afghanistan and Kosovo as suffering from obstacles in EU-NATO cooperation. Even though operational coordination worked well in Kosovo, “incidents in the north have shown the response to violence and demonstrations can only be effective if there is coordinated cooperation on the ground”.

Overall, Mr Erjavec said progress had been achieved in a number of defence areas during the past six months. These included the Capability Development Plan (CDP), the work by the European Defence Agency on the implementation of the Strategy for the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) and security sector reform. The EU had boosted its presence in the Balkans and Africa, which would have been “almost impossible to imagine 15 years ago”, he said.

Shortfalls in military capability had been a major focus of attention in a first report from the Headline Goal Task Force, he said. “In the future, it will be vital to set priorities to fill these capability gaps”, he said. This was closely linked to the Capability Development Plan, which would offer the opportunity for cooperation in weapons and defence R&D. The EU should pursue its efforts to carry out two rapid-response operations at battlegroup level simultaneously and to achieve concrete interoperability results in training, doctrine and operational procedures.

Replying to questions from the floor, Mr Erjavec said he believed that the key in the Balkans was to hold out the prospect to countries in the region of joining the EU. He said he was very disappointed that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had been unable to join NATO and acknowledged that social security and other programmes were necessary for stability. Returning to the subject of Kosovo, he noted that unemployment was running at 80% and “people need jobs”.