EUFOR Concordia was a European Union (EU) peacekeeping mission in the

Republic of North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of ...

, which started on 31 March 2003. The EU took over from NATO's operation

Allied Harmony An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

and deployed around 300 troops to provide security to EU and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors overseeing the implementation of the

Ohrid Framework Agreement The Ohrid Framework Agreement ( mk, Охридски рамковен договор, Ohridski ramkoven dogovor) was the peace deal signed by the government of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) and representatives of the Albanian m ...

, a peace settlement resolving the conflict between the government and country's ethnic Albanian community. It thus became the first ever military operation of the EU. While keeping EU's control over the entire chain of command the mission closely cooperated with NATO through transparency and regular consultations and its headquarters were at the

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) is the military headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) that commands all NATO operations worldwide. ACO's and SHAPE's commander is tit ...

in Mons. France suggested fully autonomous EU operation but United Kingdom and Germany feared it will be perceived as antagonistic to NATO. EUFOR Concordia was a significant event in the evolution of the EU's security cooperation. In the words of the then EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, when the Common European Foreign and Security Policy started only about a decade before, in 1992, " w then believed that... we would send out men in arms under the EU's flag." On 15 December 2003 the EUFOR Concordia was replaced by an EU Police Mission, code-named EUPOL PROXIMA, and the 400 EU soldiers were replaced by 200 EU police officers.

References

Military ground operations of the European Union 2003 in the Republic of Macedonia 2003 in the European Union North Macedonia–European Union relations {{RMacedonia-gov-stub