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EUC Report: EU Afghan Police Mission

I do not have the information on that; I will write to the noble Lord. I turn to the problem of decisions in Brussels. The report was rightly critical of the Brussels bureaucracy. I happen to have former students working in this area in what was the Council Secretariat and is now becoming the EU External Action Service, and I am struck by how much they have all had to learn in creating a new structure and in developing this new concept of civilian operations jointly. I think we all recognise that doing anything like this in the context of an international organisation is not entirely easy; the levels of trust are not too high so the levels of accountability, as with the initial problems over procurement, are low. I have the impression—this is certainly what I have been briefed—that lessons have been learnt, and questions of how future and continuing missions and relations between the Brussels institutions and mission leaders in the field will be managed in future are now improving. I do not have the figures to show where secondees are coming from, how easily different groups work together or whether one should point a particular finger at some member states for not pulling their weight as much as others. That is an area that the committee or others might like to look at in future. I was impressed by the written memorandum from the researcher from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik who is clearly doing some very valuable work on this. We all know that we have a great deal to learn, but we also know that the Americans are envious of the EU’s ability to apply this mix of civilian and military resources and feel that that is not something that the US is yet able to do—it tends to put the military first and not provide the full mix that we would like to have. Many other points were raised in this debate, and I shall deal with one or two. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, remarked on regional co-operation. We all understand that we cannot resolve the problem of Afghanistan on its own. I remind him, though, that although India is very active there and in many ways is a natural partner, the reaction in Pakistan to India playing a larger and more visible role, particularly with Afghanistan’s security forces of all sorts, would be such as to make that an extremely delicate area. It is almost like saying, ““We recognise that Iran has legitimate interests in Afghanistan””—which of course it does. These are very difficult areas. Pulling in Afghanistan’s neighbours to help them is not entirely easy, given the delicacy and difficulty of the region as a whole. The EU mission is on an upswing at present. It has a first-class Finnish leader and it has more people on the ground than previously. The figure is not yet up to 400, but it is well into the 300s. The sense in Brussels and London is that the situation has improved and is continuing to improve. That is not to say that things are going very well. As those who have read Sherard Cowper-Coles’ book are extremely well aware, Afghanistan presents a very difficult situation. Giving ordinary people in the provinces outside Kabul confidence in the state and in its governance is extraordinarily difficult. EUPOL has therefore begun with city policing and is working in particular in Kabul and a number of other areas to try to build civilian city policing as a constructive way forward. We recognise that what we are doing in training leaders of the police force is a long-term investment, but we hope that it is improving and providing the leadership for the much larger number of police recruits who are being trained through the NATO mission. We also feel that EU/NATO co-operation has improved and is continuing to improve on an informal basis without us stubbing our toes on the underlying problems of formal EU/NATO relations. However, that is something of which the Government are acutely aware. To come back to where I started, it is an active concern of the British Government, as it was of our predecessors, to continue to improve our capabilities in this very large area, in which weak and failed states need to make the transition to stronger governance, a more effective rule of law and, as far as possible, the building of civil society and democratic institutions. That is what the conflict pool has been about. It is the area on which we continue to work, and it is something that the Government are talking about with civilian police providers and others, as well as with our partners in Brussels. I thank the committee very much for this report. I look forward to continuing reports on this area, and I hope that other Governments, as well as many people in Brussels, have read it as well.