Mr. Michael Howard:

I do not particularly wish to comment in detail on Lord Ashdown’s comment. The appropriate level of continuing participation in ALTHEA has been the source of discussion at EU fora. The mission has gone through a number of transformations and downsizing. That has been the collective view of European Union members. When the discussions take place, some feel more of an abundance of caution than others. Perhaps Lord Ashdown sits on that side of the fence. It is perhaps a policy question that goes a little bit beyond my role. This country did participate, when it was a much larger mission, with a number of other countries on the downsizing. We were anxious to see the mission as part of a normalisation process transit into more of a support operation for Bosnia Herzegovina rather than a large mission on the ground.

On Somalia, the headquarters of the mission will move to Mogadishu. An indication has been given by the Ugandan authorities that they would like to see an end to training in Uganda and to have it moved back to Somalia. The Somali authorities would also like that to happen. What we are told is that the decision on training is one that will be made based on conditions on the ground. There has been talk of doing it in the relatively near future but we have been told that the decision to move is conditions-based, not timeline-based. A decision is expected. Training in Somalia has not commenced yet, therefore, but it is envisaged in the near future.