As international efforts to tackle Somali pirates at sea run aground, the EU has announced proposals to train up thousands of police officers in the African nation in a bid to improve security in the crisis-hit nation.

By Vanessa Mock in Brussels
 

Pirates are continuing to spread fear off the coast of Aden, where they currently hold at least a dozen ships and over 200 crew hostage, despite ongoing anti-piracy operations by the EU and other western countries. On Tuesday, the Spanish government reportedly paid $4 million in ransom to Somali pirates in exchange for the release of a Spanish trawler.
 
The plan, which is still at an early stage, is to send EU trainers to train up to 2,000 Somali police officers as part of a bigger African Union training operation. But the EU admits that the mission is likely to be modest.
 
"It will not be a big operation in the sense that it will not require [EU] trainers in their thousands, rather in their hundreds," says the EU's High Representative Javier Solana. "The number hasn't been fixed by us, but by the Somali transitional government."
 
The transitional Somalia government has requested help to build up a 6,000-strong police force to crack down on lawlessness and violence, the ills that feed the piracy problem. Somalia has been shaken by civil conflicts and insurgencies and has had no stable government since 1991, when President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in a coup.
 
Too many promises?
 
But even before the training has begun, questions are already being asked over the EU's ability to make good on its plans. It has failed to deliver on its pledge to send 400 trainers to Afghanistan, where its EUPOL police mission has suffered from lack of staff.
 
But the EU is hopeful of reaching its target, given that the training will take place not in Somalia itself but in Uganda, where there is no security risk. "But we still need to do a lot of planning and address a lot of questions for the future," Swedish Minister of Defence, Mr. Sten Tolgfors, admitted. (MORE QUESTIONS CLIP)
 
The EU has also decided to prolong its ATALANTA operation at sea, where its chief mission is to monitor the waters off the Coast of Aden in order to allow aid and food supplies to reach Somalia in safety. The mission is currently under Dutch command.
 
The decision to boost its commitment is part of the EU's broader ambition to beef up its presence on the world stage. Later this week, the EU will appoint its first-ever President and a de-facto Foreign Minister, who will benefit from new diplomatic arm with 7,000 staff and hundreds of embassies.