1. See Introductory Note to the Report of the Interim Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Assembly of the African Union, Second Ordinary Session, 4-12 July 2003, Maputo, Mozambique.
2. See Options for the EU to Support the African Peace and Security Architecture, Policy Department External Policies, EP/EXPO/B/AFET/FWC/2006-10/Lot 4/13 PE 385.541, February 2008.
3. The main objective of the Troika dialogue between the EU and AU is to establish a political process aimed at reaching common understanding on issues of mutual interest. For instance, one of the issues dealt with at the Troika meetings already held is migration, covered by the 2000 Cairo Plan of Action. At the 2003 Troika meeting, it was agreed that these common areas of interest between the EU and Africa should be streamlined under the following four clusters: peace and security, governance, regional integration and trade, and key development issues. See EU-Africa-Ministerial Troika Meeting, Rome, 10 November 2003; 14571/3 (Presse 323), Brussels, 14 November 2003.
4. Although most of these organisations started out as subregional economic groupings, the fact that they have now assumed a substantial security role calls into question the continuous reference to them as RECs.
5. Whereas the EU as an institution is quite new to peacekeeping, its Member States are well experienced in this field. For instance, several EU counties were involved in the NATO mission in Bosnia before the EU took over in 2005.