On A snowy mountain pass in Bosnia this week, Italian cara-binieri set up a road-block to check passing vehicles for contraband. Resplendent in their dark-blue uniforms with red piping-to which many had added the personal touch of a goatee beard and wrap-round dark glasses—the Italians made a striking sight. But to the politically attuned observer, the most significant part of their get-up was the badges on their arms, which bore the yellow stars on a blue background of the European Union. Bosnia, the scene of perhaps the EU'S biggest foreign-policy humiliation, is now the venue for the biggest test so far of its military ambitions. Last December, a 7,000-strong force under EU command, known as EUFOR, quietly took over control of peacekeeping operations in Bosnia from NATO.
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