EU facing battle over costs of peacekeeping in Bosnia

By David Cronin

Date: 23/09/04

THE EU is coming under pressure to revise plans for its biggest-ever military undertaking - Operation Althea in Bosnia - so that troop-supplying countries from outside the Union can be exempt from contributing to the overall budget.

Canada, which has promised to provide 85 soldiers to the 7,000-strong operation, is adamant that it should not also be required to contribute to the so-called common costs of the mission, such as barracks and lodging for the EU-led force.

Because the sum each non-EU participant in Operation Althea pays into the overall budget is likely to be determined by its relative wealth, Canada would be required to pay more than all of the other third countries. The other likely participants have a lower gross domestic product than Canada.

EU diplomats hope to be able to finalize the list of states involved in Althea tomorrow (24 September). Among those third countries committed or expected to take part are Turkey, South Africa, Chile, Brazil, Romania, Norway and Switzerland. The participating countries are likely to be required to pay any non- common costs individually, on a "costs lie where they fall" basis.

But Ottawa will send a team of high-level officials to Brussels next month to argue that it would be unfair for it to have to pay the lion's share of non-EU contributions, when Canadian generals will not be part of the strategic discussions about the operation.

"Our contribution will be in troops, planes and whatever," explained a Canadian diplomat. "We will not be part of the decision-making, so why should we have to pay common costs?"

The diplomat said that Canada was likely to maintain a presence in Althea, even if an agreement accommodating its demands cannot be brokered. Canada already has peacekeepers in Bosnia with the NATO-led Stabilization Force, which Althea will be taking over from in December.

Sources say that there has been a widespread feeling among EU states that outside participants should subscribe to a burden-sharing scheme similar to that which applied in the case of the Union's first military mission - last year's 400-troop Operation Proxima in Macedonia.

But there appears to be a possibility of compromise.

The military commander of the Althea mission, Rainer Feist, is thought to be recommending that Canada should be granted the waiver it requests.

The German admiral, who is also the deputy supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, has argued that waivers should be granted too to other budding participants, Norway, New Zealand, Chile and Switzerland. The UK is among those member states in favour of accommodating Canada's demands, on the grounds that the cost of the mission will be sizeable.

Fourteen non-EU countries took part in Proxima, alongside 13 of the then EU-15 member states (the exceptions were Ireland and Denmark).

The common costs for the undertaking came to €6.2 million with Canada paying less than €250,000. But potentially Althea would bring a much larger bill.

Antonio Missiroli, an analyst with the EU Institute for Security Studies, said it might prove difficult for the EU to grant concessions to Canada, lest it felt pressurized to treat Russia and Turkey in the same way. Although both are significant players on the European security scene, they have had a more volatile relationship with the Union than has Canada.

"Canada is a special country because it is a member of NATO and its views on peacekeeping are very close to the EU's," said Missiroli. "My hunch is that Canada is focused on how the move from NATO to the EU will mean it will lose its special status. As long as it was a purely NATO operation in Bosnia, Canada was part of the strategic decision-making. But by moving to the EU, it is losing out."

Daniel Keohane from the London think-tank, the Centre for European Reform, said that the Union needed to evaluate how a more reliable system for financing military operations could be devised. "The "costs lie where they fall" idea is quite risky when there is a need for guaranteed money to be there," he said. "In the same way as when we had floods in central Europe a few summers ago and we now have a Solidarity Fund [to cope with such emergencies], I think we need something similar for these kinds of missions."

The EU is coming under pressure to revise plans for its biggest-ever military undertaking - Operation Althea in Bosnia - so that troop-supplying countries from outside the Union, such as Canada, can be exempt from contributing to the overall budget.