European Union defence ministers agreed Wednesday to pool some of their military resources at a time of global economic slowdown, as the bloc's delicate monitoring mission in Georgia began without major hitches, DPA reported. Ministers also agreed to dispatch an anti-pirate warship fleet to Somalia and effectively declared "mission accomplished" in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ministers had been invited by the French presidency of the EU to help build up the bloc's military capabilities and review its military operations in Bosnia and Chad. But the gathering in Normandy also coincided with the day in which 200 EU monitors, flanked by 150 support staff, began patrolling Georgia to ensure that a ceasefire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on September 8 is enforced. Initial reports out of the South Caucasus indicated that the observers had experienced initial difficulties while trying to enter buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia controlled by Russian forces. But the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, told ministers in Deauville that the mission had "began very well" and was "moving forward positively". Earlier, his spokesman Cristina Gallach had said the monitors were able to "enter the buffer zones, as foreseen." Ministers then reviewed the EU's two most important military operations, in Chad and Bosnia. EUFOR Chad, which with 3,700 soldiers from 23 member states is the bloc's biggest ever, is to be replaced in March by a United Nations mission consisting of 6,000 soldiers. The ministers of France, Sweden, Poland, Ireland and the Netherlands all indicated in Deauville that they were willing to keep their troops in place with a UN hat, boosting the future's mission prospects of success. Ministers also agreed to gradually scale down the bloc's four-year-old military mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina and replace it with a civilian operation. "Basically, most of the military operations have been completed," said the meeting's host, French Defence Minister Herve Morin. The EU was due to take a final decision on the future of the Althea mission at a meeting scheduled for November 10, officials said.
