Within the framework of the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation will host an international seminar on 24 October on crisis management cooperation between the UN and the EU.
The purpose of the meeting is to identify best practices and lessons learnt in implementing the “PlanofActionto Enhance EU. CSDPSupportto UNPeacekeeping” adopted in 2012 by the Council of the European Union. Specific attention will be given to UN/EU collaboration in Mali and the Central African Republic, as well as to the experience gained on the UNIFIL mission in southern Lebanon (under the command of Brigade General Luciano Portolano, and where Italy has over 1,000 troops deployed). Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East are indeed the areas in which the EU and the UN have collaborated most extensively on confronting crises.
The Rome meeting will offer the UN an opportunity to share its peacekeeping experiences with the EU, and is expected to produce recommendations and proposals on the main challenges to peacekeeping today, especially with regard to technological innovations, training and the broader participation of EU Member States in UN missions. Such reflections could prove useful to the UN peacekeeping operations review announced by S-G Ban Ki-moon for 2015.
The event under way at the Farnesina falls within the broader framework of an initiative organised by Italy and Germany that will continue with a seminar in Berlin on consistency in mission planning and conclude with a conference in Brussels in December.