Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 59 and 345 together.

During each EU Presidency both formal and informal meetings of Defence Ministers are held. Last month the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, attended the formal Defence Ministers' meeting under the auspices of the Foreign Affairs Council. The operation commanders from the current EU-led missions were also in attendance. Discussions were focused on these current operations and future proposed developments. Ministers also received an update on ongoing work regarding the EU's relationship with other organisations, including the United Nations and NATO. Regarding the relationship with the UN, Ministers discussed how to enhance EU support to UN peacekeeping operations.

In this regard, Ireland last year produced a food for thought paper on enhancing EU-UN co-operation in crisis management, which was circulated to EU member states and discussed in various fora. The paper highlights several options as to how the EU, as part of its ongoing Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, capability development process, might identify niche or modular capabilities developed for CSDP crisis management operations, which could be made available and fully integrated into UN-led "blue hat" crisis management operations. The EU's Crisis Management and Planning Directorate, CMPD, has further elaborated on Ireland's initiative. Consultations have been ongoing between the EU and the UN regarding possibilities for enhancing EU CSDP support to UN peacekeeping.

Following on from this consultation process, the EU has set out in a paper several possible actions which could enhance EU-UN cooperation. These include the EU facilitating co-ordinated member state contributions to the UN; the EU providing a component to a UN operation, civilian or military; an EU autonomous civilian deployment in support of UN operations; and an EU autonomous military deployment in support of UN operations. Further analysis of these concepts will be undertaken by the various committees in the EU early next year.

In regard to rapid response, the EU has the capability to deploy forces at high readiness, broadly based on the battle groups concept. The purpose of these battle groups is to provide a rapid level of response to developing international crises, allowing the EU to intervene during the critical early stages. To date, no particular location has been identified as suitable for the deployment of a battle group.

Participation in battle groups is just one of a number of ways in which Ireland contributes to the EU's CSDP. We have participated in the Nordic battle group, which was on standby until 30 June 2011. In 2010 the Government approved Ireland's participation in the Austro-German battle group, which will be on standby for the second six months of 2012. The other members of the Austro-German battle group are Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Within the EU itself, several committees, including the Political and Security Committee and the EU Military Committee, keep the issue of troop deployments, including rapid response, under constant review, in consultation with all member states.

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