The European Commission announced in a statement on May 27 that it does not intend to extend the European Union’s military partnership mission in Niger, known as EUMPM, beyond the date of next June 30. According to the Commission, in light of the serious political situation affecting the country, the conditions for the continuation of the mission no longer exist, requiring its almost immediate closure.
Established in December 2022 at the request of the Niger government that was later overthrown by the coup that deposed President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, the EUMPM mission was intended to strengthen the capabilities of the local armed forces to deal with the terrorist threat present in certain areas of the country, while facilitating the protection of civilians. Initially planned for a renewable three-year duration, the EUMPM mission soon entered a crisis as a result of the coup d’état engineered by the armed forces and led by General Tchiani on July 26, 2023, then self-proclaimed president of the National Council for the Salvation of the Homeland.
The coup had been followed by a growing diplomatic crisis with the European Union, which as early as October 2023 had curtailed the mission’s activities while continuing to insist on the restoration of President Bazoum’s legitimate government, in a spiral of crisis that had then led in the following December to the military junta government announcing its intention to terminate both the agreement establishing the EUCAP Sahel Niger mission and the EUMPM military partnership mission.
This had resulted in a gradual withdrawal of the troops, while on April 23, 2024, the EU Political and Security Committee had agreed to propose to the Commission that the mission be permanently terminated on the following June 30.
On the other hand, it is still unclear what the future holds for the 130 European police officers still in the country as part of the EUCAP Sahel mission, which the government of Niger nonetheless declared last December that it intends to end through the termination of the founding agreement, although the time frame for this procedure is still uncertain.
The Niger government also recently agreed with the United States on the withdrawal of its contingent present in the country, following prolonged negotiations in which the authorities in Niamey have shown increasing rigidity and intransigence.
This outlines a clear break in the country’s relationship with the sphere of international allies that supported it prior to the 2023 coup, with the concomitant opening of the Niger government to Russia, which has offered the military junta its support both in training and in supplying the armaments required by the local authorities. An agreement with Russia for the promotion of military cooperation was signed last Dec. 4, during the visit to Niamey of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Junus-bek Yevkurov, who is the main coordinator of Russian activities on the African continent, and who is believed to be the architect of Moscow’s military penetration strategy in Libya and the Sahel.
Deputy Defense Minister Yevkurov then returned for a visit to Niger on June 4, as part of a regional mission that had earlier led him to Benghazi, Libya, for a meeting with General Khalifa Haftar, where he again met with the top leadership of the military junta headed by General Tchiani and his counterpart Salifu Modi, with whom they officially discussed strengthening military and economic cooperation. According to reports in the business daily Bloomberg, however, Russia’s real interest in Niger, and the contextual likely reason for Yevkurov’s new visit to Bamako, would be due to the Russian nuclear company Rosatom’s attempt to seize the uranium reserves stored in the country by a French company – Oran SA – as well as direct access to the mineral resources of the facilities operated by French companies.
According to some local sources, moreover, Yevkurov is also a strong supporter of the regional military alliance pact between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso – called the Alliance of Sahel States and formed in September 2023 with the signing of the Liptako-Gourma Charter – as well as the initiator of the joint military exercise between the forces of the three countries that began last May 20 in the Tillia area, about 100 kilometers from the Niger-Chad border, where military units from Togo and Chad also participated, and then concluded on June 3.
