EVORA - The European Union will assemble enough troops to help protect civilians in Chad and Central African Republic from violence in neighbouring Darfur, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Saturday.

"Chad is an operation that will take place and I don't think you can say that we are having difficulties (assembling troops) at this time," Solana told journalists after meeting EU defence ministers at an informal two-day meeting in Portugal.

A EU official close to French Defence Minister Herve Morin told Reuters the EU had gathered up to 2,500 of the 4,000 troops needed to carry out the peacekeeping mission by the end of the year.

"We have gathered between 2,000 and 2,500 EU troops and more countries are still preparing their contributions," the official said. "France will contribute about 1,500 troops," he added.

The mission was proposed by France and approved by the United Nations on Tuesday. It still needs the approval of the EU's 27 member states.

The EU official, who asked not to be named, said France was confident the EU would be able to assemble the troops needed to carry out the mission by the end of the year.

Portugal's Defence Minister Nuno Severiano Teixeira, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said most countries were still considering how to contribute to the mission.

"All EU countries are at different stages in their decision-making process regarding their contribution to this mission but each one of them is facing this mission very positively," Teixeira said.

Diplomats familiar with the situation said Belgium, Poland, Ireland and Sweden would send troops. Spain would give only logistical support while Germany offered political help.


PLEA FOR PROTECTION

Humanitarian workers operating in the desolate Chad-Sudan border area have sought international protection for some 400,000 Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians in Chad and 200,000 displaced people in the Central African Republic.

The U.N. will contribute up to 300 police, 50 military liaison officers and civilian personnel to the mission.

The "multidimensional" force is expected to serve for one year in Chad and the northeastern Central African Republic and will be known as MINURCAT, the French acronym for U.N. Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad, according to the U.N. resolution.