Estonian Defence Forces members to serve in EU’s Mali mission headquarters

Photo: SCANPIX

Minister of Defence Urmas Reinsalu has decided to sign a directive for dispatching two members of the Defence Forces to the European Union’s military training mission in Mali.

An Estonian staff officer and senior non-commissioned staff officer will begin serving at the European Union mission headquarters in Bamako. Their duties will be to plan the training of and to advise the Malian armed forces in conjunction with defence forces personnel from other European countries, reported Ministry of Defence.

“By sending Estonian defence forces members to Mali we are defending Europe as well as ourselves,” said Reinsalu. “The instability in Mali poses a clear danger to the region as well as to Europe. Islamic extremists could take advantage of the turbulence and plan terrorist attacks on Europe. A self-governing, stable Mali is in all of our interests.”

Estonian Defence Forces members are prepared to deploy as soon as the European Union makes the decision to launch the mission.

The decision to establish the mission was made by the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council on 17 January based on a request from the Malian government for assistance and mandate granted by the UN Security Council.

The objective of the EU training mission is to support the building of the Malian armed forces and to help the Malian government to restore control over the country’s territory. To do this, four battalions of Malian armed forces will be trained. The Malian armed forces will also be supported in matters related to training and advice, pertaining to military command, military capability, logistics support and personnel administration.

The European Union training mission mandate will last 15 months and the size of the operation will be approximately 500 defence forces personnel.

The military training mission is part of the EU’s security and defence policy. The mission also supports the Sahel region strategy, in the framework of which the European Union has allocated funding for security projects in Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

The mandate for deploying Estonian defence forces personnel was granted by Parliament on 19 December, pledging to send up to five Defence Forces members to serve on the new NATO or EU operation staff.

Along with the participation on the Mali mission, Estonian troops are serving on six foreign missions: the NATO ISAF peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, the NATO KSOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, the EU antipiracy mission ATALANTA in the Gulf of Aden, the European Union’s EUTM military training mission in Mali, the UN UNTSO military truce supervision mission in Kosovo and as part of the NATO Response Force.