Paris, 16 June 2010 – The European Union had already shown that it was “capable of responding to crises even though the public at large often seems to think it is not”, Mrs Claude-France ARNOULD, Deputy Director General of the EU’s Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD), said on Wednesday.

Speaking before the European Security and Defence Assembly, Mrs ARNOULD, an EU Council official representing Catherine ASHTON, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, cited the example of Georgia where “only the EU was capable of taking action” in response to the crisis with Russia in August 2009. “In spite of their initial positions sometimes differing, the 27 soon managed to reach a political consensus. Within three days we had put forward options for the observation mission which was deployed in record time”.

Mrs ARNOULD also cited Operation Atalanta, deployed to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden, as one of the “best examples” in EU crisis management of the implementation of “global and regional approaches building on civil and military synergies”. Through Atalanta it had been possible to arrest pirates and transfer them for trial and imprisonment to countries such as Kenya or the Seychelles, with which agreements had been signed. She also recalled that with the training of Somali soldiers in Uganda, the main contributor of troops to Somalia from the African Union, there was now a “real opportunity to tackle the direct causes of piracy”.

The EU will take another step forward in crisis management with the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), currently in the preparatory phase, into which the CMDP will be incorporated. Mrs ARNOULD said she was certain that the institutional changes stemming from the Lisbon Treaty would give the EU’s external action “greater coherence and a higher profile”. The EU’s profile, however, “also depends on the way in which Europe is presented in its capital cities”.

“For all such action, we also need a very close dialogue with our political leaders and the national parliaments. Everything possible will be done to ensure close interaction with the national parliaments, as such interaction is one of the keys to the success of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The more interparliamentary dialogue there is, the greater the support we will have from the public and national delegations”, Mrs ARNOULD declared. In her view, it was necessary “to recognise the role of both the contributing states and that of the EU. We cannot say that it is either the European Parliament or the national parliaments that decide. It is both. The High Representative and the CSDP need the support of both”.