EUHR Solana's remarks during his visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

• I am very pleased to be back in Sarajevo in the company of my good friend Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary General of NATO.
  
  
• This visit follows the adoption on 12 July by the Foreign Ministers of the EU of a Joint Action establishing a Military Operation in BiH, code-named ALTHEA, under the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
  
  
• The operation will be launched by the end of the year and follows the decision by NATO to conclude its successful Stabilisation Force (SFOR) operation, as well as the adoption of Resolution 1551 by the UN Security Council welcoming the EU's intention to launch a mission in BiH, including a military component.
  
  
• Continuity and development are precisely what this change-over is about. And let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to what NATO has been able to do in BiH in the last nine years. It has fulfilled its core task, of maintaining a safe and secure environment.
  
  
• But its role has evolved, from being a guarantor of the peace treaty, to being a mentor of increasingly more ambitious efforts on the part of BiH political leaders. To move away from militarization and polarisation to a right-sized security system, with the armed forces under unified control.
  
  
• The EU, like NATO nine years ago, is embarking on a new role. We will fulfil this role, as NATO has done, conscious of the changing requirements of BiH.
  
  
• Our objective is to put BiH irreversibly on the road towards EU membership - and that involves a broad and profound reform effort, which has only recently got properly underway.
  
  
• The EU Force (EUFOR) is the latest element in a comprehensive EU strategy to help BiH. It will add in a significant way to the EU's political engagement, community assistance programmes, the Police Reform Commission and the EU Police Mission (EUPM).
  
  
• EUPM has shown the way to other ESDP operations that have since followed. The European Union Monitoring Mission in the former Yugoslavia (EUMM) on its part has proved its great value and could be used in the future in other theatres. Now, EUPM and EUMM will be joined by EUFOR. Coherence and co-operation are crucial as we are all working towards a common goal: that BiH becomes a self-sustained and peaceful country.
  
  
• I want to make it very clear that EUFOR will begin its operations with all the materiel and personnel that it requires - the same troop strength as SFOR. It will have what it needs to do the job.
  
  
• Its chain of command, running from Major General Leakey, through Admiral Feist to the EU Military Committee, is clear and functional. As Secretary General of the Council of the EU, I will work directly with the Military Committee, while here in BiH the EUSR, Paddy Ashdown, will work closely with General Leakey.
  
  
• We have a structure, a force level and a political-military framework that is optimal. This is as it should be, because we know that the people of BiH expect much of this mission. The people of Europe expect much of this mission too.
  
  
• EUFOR will demonstrate that Europe is capable of taking sensible, coordinated and robust steps to obtain a security environment that benefits its own citizens and those of its neighbours.
  
  
• At the very end, all these efforts are not about the future of NATO or the EU. These efforts are about the future of this country. And this future is undoubtedly in Europe, in the European institutions.
  
  
• We can promise effective international support for this journey. Close co-operation between the EU and NATO is guaranteed.

| Top |

• EUHR Solana welcomes breakthrough on police restructuring in Bosnia and Herzegovina (29/4/2005)