Where the use of military capacities – as a last resort – is considered in support of civil protection operations to be appropriate, cooperation with the military must follow the modalities, procedures and criteria established by the Council or its competent bodies for making available to the Mechanism military capacities relevant to the protection of civilian populations, as well as the ‘guidelines on the use of foreign military and civil defence assets in disaster relief’ (Oslo guidelines, rev. 1.1, 2007) and the ‘guidelines on the ...[+++]use of military and civil defence assets to support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies’ (MCDA, rev. I, 2006).

42. Stresses that any decision-making process in Council following a request for assistance under the solidarity clause must not be detrimental to EU reactivity, and that crisis response through the existing mechanisms, such as the Civil Protection Mechanism, must be able to start immediately, irrespective of any such political decision; points out the fact that the use of military assets to support civil protection operations is already possible on operational level without the activation ...[+++] of the solidarity clause, as evidenced by the successful cooperation between the Commission and the EU Military Staff on past operations in Pakistan or Libya;

increase its humanitarian support, both financially and in terms of logistics; offer the AU to send a civilian and military expert team to the region to assess urgently how best to further support the AU Observer Mission, including the protection force; continue to impress on the Government of Sudan and the two rebel movements the urgency to meet the requests contained in the Council Conclusions of 12 July 2004; continue to be actively involved in the process of political negotiations; continue to closely co-operate with the UN, AU and the US; continue to support the efforts made by the UN, including the Special Representative of th ...[+++]e UN Secretary General; depending on the outcome of the Joint Implementation Mechanism on 2 August and the assessment of the developments in the coming period, take appropriate further steps; actively contribute to the work of the Joint Implementation Mechanism.

– Mr President, Colombia – one of South America's oldest democracies and a country which, unusually for this continent, has not been prone to military dictatorship – is tragically a victim of 37 years of civil war and terrorist activity, which have destroyed infrastructure, killed 40 000 people and corrupted its civil and military authorities through guerrilla involvement with the drugs trade.

My own take on terrorism has been that, leaving aside nihilism and anarchism, terrorism is mostly an activity that is carried out in the furtherance of some political, economic, social or other rationale against an opponent where traditional mechanisms, be they political, judicial, military or whatever, are deemed off the table.

4.1. Political and security issues EMP regional activities have made most satisfying progress in this area on four issues in particular: - confidence-building measures have been approved, including the creation of a network of political and security correspondents, the compilation of human rights and weapons inventories, the effective launch of a Euro- Mediterranean network of defence institutes, the planned launch of machinery for exchanges of senior political and military officials, and ongoing work on the organization of civil and ...[+++]military cooperation machinery for use in the event of disasters in the region; - discussions are under way on a plan of action covering six areas: strengthening of democracy, preventive diplomacy, security and confidence- building measures (see above), disarmament, terrorism and organized crime; - work has started on a Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability, an institutional dialogue and crisis-prevention mechanism seen as the cornerstone of the EMP's political and security dimension; - September saw the inauguration of joint information and training measures aimed at diplomats from the twenty-seven Partnership countries - these will continue next year, when an electronic information network linking their foreign ministries will be put in place.