NATO welcomes EUFOR's interim deployment to BiH

“EUFOR plays a key role in preserving a secure environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with NATO support, within the framework of the “Berlin plus””, the NATO headquarters for Banja Luka's Nezavisne Novine said.

They explained that the announcement of the establishment of battalions from NATO's strategic reserves in BiH is in line with the “Berlin Plus” between the EU and NATO, which enables sending troops to areas under EU strategic command.

Members of the EUFOR Strategic Reserve are already in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their equipment arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday, April 7th, it announced. EUFOR earlier. They added that members of the “Strategic Reserve will soon carry out patrols throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and will be trained with EUFOR forces on the ground and members of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Armed Forces. ”

The arrival of new military forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina prompted numerous reactions, as well as controversy as whether they were members of EUFOR or NATO.

The “Berlin plus” agreement envisions that the EU has the last word on strategic decisions it makes in missions under its command, as is the case with EUFOR “Althea” in BiH, but that uses NATO resources in the implementation of the mandate.

“in this case, in line with the UN Security Council resolution, the EU has the opportunity to send up to 3,500 soldiers to BiH, where now it is slightly less than half the total, without additional approval from the UN Security Council”, according to Nezavisne text inovina.

It adds that these troops may also be part of NATO's reserve.

One of the reasons for sending NATO's strategic reserve to BiH as part of EUFOR is the possibility that at the moment the armies of EU member states do not have resources that could be made available directly by their forces. In line with the Dayton Agreement, the military part of the implementation of the peace agreement was NATO's responsibility until 2004, when the military mission was transferred to the EU.

Every year, the UN Security Council votes to extend the EUFOR mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“If the UN Security Council decides to end the EUFOR mission, NATO can restore its competence for the military aspect of implementation of the Dayton Agreement, where a new resolution would not be necessary because the existing mandate recognises NATO's presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. which flows directly from the military aspect of the Dayton Agreement”, the text says.

And in the UN Security Council's recent decision from November last year to continue EUFOR's mandate, which Russia has voted for, the presence of EUFOR and NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned.

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