Africa-Press – Mozambique. The 27 member states of the European Union on Wednesday endorsed the crisis management concept of the future European Union military training mission in Mozambique, taking the first step towards its formalisation diplomatic sources told Lusa.
At the last meeting of EU ambassadors under the Portuguese presidency – which ends today – the permanent representatives of the member states endorsed the ‘Crisis Management Concept’, establishing the first step that will lead to the formalisation of the approval of the mission by the EU Council.
According to diplomatic sources, the final approval of the military training mission should take place on 12 July at the Foreign Affairs Council, which brings together all heads of European diplomacy.
In the concept approved today, the 27 member states provide for the possibility of launching a measure to assist the Mozambican armed forces, which includes the supply of “non-lethal equipment” to “support the deployment in Cabo Delgado” of the Mozambican army.
The mission will be headed by Portuguese Army Brigadier-General Nuno Lemos Pires and is expected to last 28 months: four months to establish the mission, plus two years.
In addition, the military training mission in Mozambique will be the first European mission under the Common Security and Defence Policy to be funded through the European Peace Facility, a financial instrument established in March consisting of €5 billion, and allowing the European Union for the first time to provide military equipment to countries worldwide.
The establishment of a military training mission in Mozambique had been identified by Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva as “absolutely urgent” and “absolutely essential” for EU-Mozambique relations.
Accordingly, in January, he travelled to Mozambique to meet the local authorities as Special Envoy of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.
During the April Foreign Affairs Council, he pointed out that when he was in Maputo, his Mozambican counterpart, Verónica Macamo, told him that the country was “very interested” that a strengthening of the “peace and security component” in EU-Mozambique relations “should materialise through support, in addition to logistical support, in military training and education”.
“The presence of foreign troops on Mozambican territory to combat the terrorist networks that unfortunately operate in Cabo Delgado has never been, and is not, in question. The possibility of this increase in cooperation in the area of security through a non-executive mission aimed at the military training of Mozambican special troops was and is always in question,” Santos Silva emphasized at the time.
Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the rebel group Islamic State in a wave of violence that has led to more than 2,800 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and 732,000 displaced people, according to the UN.
