By Ben Nimmo Jun 12, 2009, 14:32 GMT
Brussels - It does not look great for the European Union: two years after it launched a mission to train Afghanistan's police, NATO decided on Friday to start a training force of its own.
'The EU-trained police are really good at writing parking tickets, but that's not what we need right now,' one highly-placed NATO official told the German Press Agency dpa.
But the debate is not so clear-cut. While some officials say that the NATO mission's role will be to pick up the ball from the EU, others insist that there is not only room for two police training missions in Afghanistan, there is a definite need for them.
Two years ago, on June 15, 2007, the EU sent the first police officers to 'contribute to the establishment of sustainable and effective civil policing arrangements' in Afghanistan.
The move was part of an EU push to make its presence felt alongside NATO in Afghanistan, at a time when the United States, in particular, was complaining that Europe was not doing its bit.
But two years on, NATO officials say that the EU's mission has not given the Afghan police the kind of training they need.
'The EU is not effectively training the Afghan police, so we need to use NATO more,' said a NATO diplomat from an EU member state.
Complaints about the EU mission are not limited to NATO. On February 19, the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said that he had hoped the bloc would be 'more active' in police training, rather than making the US 'carry the main burden.'
The EU mission was originally mandated to have 200 trainers. In early 2008, member states doubled that target, but by the time Eide made his comments, the mission had only 177 international staff.
At present, there are roughly 300 EU trainers in Afghanistan, and 'the intention is to keep moving towards 400,' Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman to the EU's top diplomat, Javier Solana, told dpa.
On Friday, to fill the gap, NATO defence ministers approved a new training mission for the Afghan police.
That mission, whose backbone is expected to be 300 paramilitaries from France and Italy, is intended to teach the Afghan police not just how to keep the peace, but how to survive in a firefight.
'We know from the fact that two-thirds of all uniformed losses, Afghan and NATO, are among the police that they are under very heavy pressure. That indicates a need for more military-style training: they need the ability to fight back,' Estonian Defence Minister Jaak Aaviksoo told dpa.
But diplomats in both organizations insist that NATO's move is not intended as a snub to the EU's two-year-old mission.
'NATO will take specific units from specific EU member states to do specific training in higher-risk situations ... The EU is training specific types, senior elements in the interior ministry, on issues like police practice and the rule of law,' Gallach said.
NATO officials, too, acknowledge that the EU is doing a necessary job, even if it is not one the alliance itself would prioritize.
'Afghan civilians often complain that there's nobody to turn to if they've been burgled or mugged: that's what the EU is trying to address,' another European NATO diplomat said.
Indeed, within both the EU and NATO, officials say that the basic problem is not that either organization is not doing its job, but that there are simply too many jobs to go round.
'There is so much to do there: everything needs to be done, from securing territory from the insurgents, to holding it down, to ensuring that police units are well trained,' Gallach said.
And given the problems which Western nations increasingly face in finding staff, especially non-military staff, to go to Afghanistan, NATO's main challenge is less likely to be covering any gaps left by the EU, than filling the holes in its own ranks.
'We still need more. Three hundred trainers is clearly a very low number if we want to be serious,' Aaviksoo said.
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