EU consider setting up paramilitary police force

Plans to set up a European paramilitary police force based on the French gendarmes or Italy’s Carabinieri to support international peacekeeping missions top the agenda at a meeting for EU defence ministers opening today.

Ministers from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands are set to sign an agreement tomorrow to put in motion plans to create the 3,000-strong force, which supporters say will fill a dangerous gap in Europe’s peacekeeping capabilities.

The idea – suggested by France last year – is to have paramilitary police from those five nations, which each have national gendarme-type forces, ready to deploy at quick notice for peacekeeping missions.

Due to become operational next year, the force will have a core of 800 gendarmes able to move into a crisis within a month, with a pool of 2,300 reinforcements on standby. The force would be headquartered in Vicenza, north-east Italy.

European Union planners say such forces are increasingly necessary to enforce public order in support of military peacekeepers, fight crime and train local law enforcement after a crisis.

The need was thrown into focus in March, when Nato troops were caught unaware by mob violence in Kosovo that left 19 people dead.

Efforts to contain the riots were constrained by constitutional restraints that prevented troops from some Nato nations intervening to control a civil disturbance. The police force would typically be made up of forces trained an equipped to handle riot control.

The defence ministers meeting in the Dutch North Sea resort of Noordwijk are also to review wider proposals to boost the EU’s military muscle, including plans to create elite “battlegroups” for rapid deployment to international trouble spots. The meeting will also look at arrangements for the bloc to launch its biggest military operation to date – by taking over Nato’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

Nato will hand over command of a 7,000-strong peacekeeping force in Bosnia to the EU in December.

The “battlegroup” plan would give the EU up to nine units of up to 2,000 soldiers able to deploy within 15 days.

The idea was first drawn up by Britain, France and Germany to allow the Europeans to intervene quickly in international troublespots before they spin out of control.

EU military officials said at least two such groups should be up and running next year – probably formed by France and Britain. The EU wants to have nine battlegroups ready by 2007.