Mozambique: Approval of EU training mission expected in June – Portuguese defence minister

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Mozambique: Approval of EU training mission expected in June – Portuguese defence minister

7:31 CAT | 31 May 2021

Photo: Lusa

Portugal’s Minister of Defence said on Friday he expected the European Union’s training mission in Mozambique to be formally approved in June, adding that “the expectation” is that the military will be on the ground about “three months” later.

João Gomes Cravinho was speaking to journalists at a joint press conference with the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, at the Belém Cultural Centre (CCB) in Lisbon, at the end of the informal meeting of European defence ministers.

“There has already been a technical mission in Mozambique since 19 May to identify the exact parameters of what could be a [European] mission, which will need to be formally approved. We hope that this will happen in June,” the minister said.

Gomes Cravinho’s “expectation” is that “it will soon be possible to complete the formal processes so that within three months, approximately, it will be possible to have the EU training mission on the ground.

According to the minister, at the informal meeting “it became clear” that there was “widespread support” from European governments for this mission, adding that “nobody said they didn’t think it was a good idea”.

“And in relation to the participating countries, I would say that there are seven or eight that have already indicated willingness to provide military personnel for the mission, but I would like to follow the formal rules, that is, I would first like the mission to be formally approved, and secondly, I would like the countries themselves to say outside what they have already had the opportunity to say inside,” he said.

Asked about the nature of the mission, Gomes Cravinho said that it would use as a “basis” the Portuguese training mission already on the ground as part of bilateral cooperation between Portugal and Mozambique.

“The technical mission [of the EU] looked carefully at what we are doing bilaterally, there was an important exchange of information and the idea that will be presented in Brussels is that an EU training mission will take the same concept that we have already developed, using the basis of our training to gain a greater scale,” he said.

Source: Lusa