Luxembourg's Ministry of Internal Security and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs have announced that a Grand Ducal Police Commissioner is joining the civilian European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA).
On Wednesday 1 March 2023, Luxembourg's Minister of Internal Security, Henri Kox, and the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Jean Asselborn, signed a Grand-Ducal regulation relating to the participation of Luxembourg in the EUMA which was officially launched on 20 February 2023. In order to support this civilian mission, a Commissioner of the Grand Ducal Police will be deployed as Monitoring Team Leader.
The objective of EUMA, according to the Luxembourg authorities, is to contribute to stability in the border areas of Armenia, foster confidence-building, strengthen human security in conflict-affected areas and create an environment conducive to normalisation efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Background
On 23 January 2023, the Council of the EU adopted a decision creating the EUMA which is a neutral, non-executive and non-armed civilian mission with a two-year mandate. EUMA's all-civilian staff will amount to about 100 in total, including some 50 unarmed observers.
The EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is designed to offer the possibility of using military and/or civilian means with the aim of preventing conflicts and managing international crises. In the civilian domain, the missions include assistance actions which can take the form, among other things, of strategic advice, training and support for the reform of the security sector in the broad sense. Luxembourg's effort in these missions concerns in particular the Grand Ducal Police which, for years, has made substantial contributions to civilian CSDP, noted the Luxembourg authorities.
Currently, the EU is carrying out twelve civilian missions on three continents, with the one in Armenia being the most recent.
