EU foreign ministers are on Tuesday (17 November) to endorse a plan to train several thousand Somali security forces in Uganda. It will become an EU mission, running in parallel to the EU’s anti-piracy mission operating off the coast of Somalia.

Member states’ ambassadors on the political and security committee of the Council of Ministers yesterday (11 November) agreed a text inviting the Union’s foreign policy chief to start operational planning for the training mission. The text includes broad outlines of the training mission, which is fraught with difficulties because the new security forces are supposed to absorb clan fighters and Islamist militias.

The European Commission is worried that Somalia has no functioning government that could guarantee financing for security forces. Under current rules, EU money cannot be used to pay the wages of security forces, but providing military training to militia members risks undermining the government unless there is a guarantee that they can be paid in the future.

Only two governments – the United States and Italy – provide direct financing to Somali government forces. The international community pledged at a donors’ conference in April to support the training of a 10,000-strong Somali police force and a national army of around 5,000 men.

? The foreign ministers are also expected to discuss Belarus, even though there has been no tangible improvement on democracy and human rights by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Diplomats suggested that the ministers were likely to continue the arrangement in place since last year, under which sanctions – primarily visa bans on members of the regime – are suspended but not lifted.

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