On 14 June, ten Lithuanian officers and one Italian Carabinieri of the Reserve Formed Police Unit (RFPU) of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) left Kosovo and were redeployed to their respective countries. Following their departure, the EULEX RFPU is currently made up of 23 Italian Carabinieri.

The eleven gendarmes had been deployed to Kosovo to temporarily reinforce the capacity of EULEX’s Formed Police Unit (FPU), which consists of 105 Polish Police Officers, in order to respond to the Mission’s need to have additional forces on the ground to better support Kosovo counterparts, if requested and if necessary. The EULEX FPU is Kosovo’s second security responder, forming part of a three-layer security responder mechanism where the Kosovo Police is the first security responder, EULEX is the second, and NATO/KFOR is the third.