The German Ministry for Defence announced last weekend that multinational battle groups may be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during their election period. The first polls are provisionally set on the 29 April, for which the UN has asked the EU to send a battlegroup to support the current UN mission MONUC. For several months, the UN has been attempting to reinforce the MONUC mission in view of the elections.
However, a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defence stressed that the EU will first send a fact finding mission to the DRC before taking any decision on how to proceed and on whether a battlegroup should be involved on the spot or not.
The first EU battlegroup, a unit consisting of 1,500 troops, was launched by the UK, France and Germany in February 2004. The key objective of this project is to make fast reaction to crises possible, such as taking the decision to launch an operation within 5 days of approval by the Council.
