welcomes the strategy set out therein (which outlines four sustainable solutions, namely voluntary return to pre-conflict homes as the preferred solution, as well as local integration, resettlement and relocation), and calls upon the parties to co-operate in its implementation.The Council welcomes the strengthened links between the RRTF and the Return Facilitation Group, its counterpart in Croatia.

12. Special Envoys in municipalities: The Council endorses the High Representative's wish to speed up implementation of the Peace Agreement at the local level. It notes the central role of municipal co-operation in fostering returns. The Council notes that the High Representative's decision to send a Special Envoy to Drvar following the violence against minority returnees and the international community there in April has proved helpful.

The Council supports the High Representative's decision to expand this initiative by deploying Special Envoys more widely, but based strictly on an urgent local requirement in order to avoid fostering a climate of dependency on the international community.

The Council urges governments to make available suitable personnel to the High  Representative for deployment if necessary, as envisaged in articles 74 and 76 of the Luxembourg Declaration of the Ministerial meeting of the Steering Board. It is grateful to those governments which have made personnel available for these assignments so far. The Council also welcomes the co-operation between the High Representative, the ECMM and the OSCE on this issue.

13. The Council is fully aware of the close link between progress in returns and progress in other crucial areas such as the rule of law and economic reconstruction. It makes clear its intention to support the High Representative in tackling any bureaucratic and political obstructions to returns by the local authorities. It also acknowledges that returnees need jobs, and a safe environment reliably policed. As this document makes clear, these objectives are at the top of the international community's agenda for next year. But the Council makes clear that refugee and displaced person returns and fulfilling these other objectives must proceed in parallel.

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