EU adopts legal and financial basis for the ESDP mission to Kosovo
The European Union adopted on Monday under a speedy, written procedure the “Joint Action”, a document on the legal and financial basis for sending the ESDP mission to Kosovo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, February 05, 2008
EU adopts legal and financial basis for the ESDP mission to Kosovo
EU member countries had the right to abstain, and Cyprus used the opportunity to do so.
The content of the document will be published on Friday in the EU Official Journal.
The name of the mission is "EULEX", and the legal basis for sending the mission is the UN Security Council resolution, namely a creative interpretation of the Article 10 which allows the UN Secretary-General to create an international civilian mission to Kosovo.
The EU will send 1,800 policemen, judges and prosecutors to Kosovo, while the yearly budget will be 160 million euros.
One final step is needed before actually sending the mission - a decision by the EU ministers to adopt the "Operational plan", which gives the green light for deployment.
The mission would start deploying the day after the "Operations plan" is adopted.
This plan could be adopted on February 18, when foreign ministers meet next.
EU heads of state and government brought on December 14 at the Brussels summit the "political decision" about the intention to send the mission to Kosovo.
Serbia is strongly opposed to sending the EU mission to Kosovo without a prior adequate decision by the UN Security Council as it believes that it represents the implementation of the Martti Ahtisaari plan on the "supervised independence" of Kosovo.
