The European Union Monitoring Mission completed its 2000th patrol on Tuesday 17 February, four and a half months after the Mission started its work in Georgia on 1st of October 2008. It is a tribute to the monitoring teams that they have continued to carry out their work effectively despite a series of changes and challenges in recent months. There were the difficulties associated with the speedy deployment, the change of Field Office locations, and most recently a change around as 68 new monitors arrived. All through these events, the monitoring work of the Mission has continued.
With the arrival of new monitors we have been able to move on from the original national contingent concept. We now have a mixture of countries and experts across the Field Offices, ensuring a good spread of expertise on every single issue in order to fully implement our mandate and in order to profit best from all their skills. We now have 251 Field Office staff.
With the new restructuring that has taken place within the four field offices (FO) of the EUMM in FO Tbilisi, Gori, Khashuri and Zugdidi the patrols are divided into three functional areas:
• humanitarian/IDP;
• police/justice/human rights and
• military
From early reports the new system appears to be working well. Monitoring and reporting are the key roles of EUMM. There is no doubt that there will be many more day and night patrols by our Monitors as we seek to bring security and stability to the areas adjacent to the administrative boundary lines.
With the arrival of new monitors we have been able to move on from the original national contingent concept. We now have a mixture of countries and experts across the Field Offices, ensuring a good spread of expertise on every single issue in order to fully implement our mandate and in order to profit best from all their skills. We now have 251 Field Office staff.
With the new restructuring that has taken place within the four field offices (FO) of the EUMM in FO Tbilisi, Gori, Khashuri and Zugdidi the patrols are divided into three functional areas:
• humanitarian/IDP;
• police/justice/human rights and
• military
From early reports the new system appears to be working well. Monitoring and reporting are the key roles of EUMM. There is no doubt that there will be many more day and night patrols by our Monitors as we seek to bring security and stability to the areas adjacent to the administrative boundary lines.