EU open to bigger role in Afghan police training
Source: Reuters
BRUSSELS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The European Union is studying a possible takeover of training of Afghanistan's police force as part of moves to stamp out widespread corruption plaguing reconstruction efforts, EU officials said on Tuesday. NATO, battling a violent insurgency in the country, is pushing for the 25-member bloc to expand a German-led training operation which the military alliance says has made little progress so far. An EU team travelled to Afghanistan in September to assess EU help for security reforms and its findings were currently under discussion by member states, one EU official said. "If there is added value in an EU contribution, we will evaluate that in a favourable light," said the official. "There is no conclusion yet. It's in the process of being evaluated," added the official, who requested anonymity. A second official said any such move would first require Germany and Italy -- the other European country involved in existing efforts -- to request an EU operation, and for the other member states to agree to it. NATO, which has acknowledged it underestimated the scale of violence it is facing in Afghanistan, says the conflict cannot be settled by military means alone and has stepped up calls on international partners to do more in the civilian domain. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told an audience in Brussels on Monday that the EU was ideally suited to providing police training in the country and urged it to assume full management of the operation. While the top of the Afghan judiciary and interior ministry had been shaken up with reformers committed to the rule of law, the alliance sees a need to train and equip judges and police and to build administrative capacity -- areas of EU expertise. An official for the European Commission noted the bloc was the largest payer for Afghan police training and salaries, and said NATO had made no specific request to EU officials during a meeting on Afghanistan hosted by the alliance last week. NATO officials say corruption in the Afghan police and judiciary is undermining local confidence in President Hamid Karzai's government and his efforts to extend the rule of law. NATO's top commander of operations, U.S. General James Jones, in September highlighted police reform as one of the major weaknesses of U.N. reconstruction efforts.
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