The European Union has begun to move its ceasefire monitors into potential Georgian flashpoints in what could become a key test of the EU bloc’s ability to deal with the aftermath of war.

“Show the flag, be friendly, show confidence,” Hansjörg Haber, the head of the EU mission, told more than 200 unarmed monitors before they started to patrol buffer zones surrounding the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Under the French-brokered deal, Russian troops are supposed to withdraw entirely to the enclaves by October 10. South Ossetia and Abkhazia have declared independence but the only main power to recognise them as independent entities so far is Russia. Moscow plans to keep 7,600 troops in the breakaway regions, thus establishing a garrison south of the Caucasus mountains for the first time since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The delicacy of the mission was underlined yesterday when initially Russian soldiers refused the EU monitors access to the zones, claiming that they could not guarantee the security of the patrols.

“We now look forward to all parties fulfilling their commitments as much as the EU did,” Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, said.

The EU task is not only to ensure that the Russians leave, but also to take over their command posts. The danger is that South Ossetian militia could feel emboldened by the presence of so many Russian soldiers on their own soil and attack Georgian communities. The Georgian Army, mainly disabled by the war, would not be able to help if this happened.

The main responsibility will fall on Russia to keep the South Ossetians in check. That will entail a high degree of communication between Russian commanders and the EU team, as well as between the EU and Moscow.

Russia is suspicious that the EU team will, in effect, be dependent on Georgian help and demonstrate a pro-Georgian bias.

The Georgian aim remains ultimately to reclaim the provinces and rid them of Russian troops. “Let’s have no illusions about it,” said Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President, earlier this week. “We will not be happy until the very last soldier gets out of my country.”

It is this complexity that makes the EU monitoring mission so special. The EU, dependent on “soft power” rather than military muscle, has played marginal roles in other crisis zones including the Balkans. The team in Georgia, however, has been put together and deployed less than seven weeks after the end of open hostilities — unusually swift for the EU and a sign that the Georgian conflict is being treated as a test case for the effectiveness of a concerted European foreign policy.

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