(DEAUVILLE) - The European Union is considering scaling down or ending its peacekeeping operation in Bosnia as security there improves, senior French officials said Wednesday.

"It is useful that at some point European states send a signal to their citizens that when we launch a mission we are also capable of finishing it," French Defence Minister Herve Morin said, ahead of talks with his EU partners.

An official from France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the year, said that Althea had essentially finished its tasks, and that a transition mechanism was being considered.

"Most of the tasks of this operation have been completed, so we could envisage heading toward the closure of this mission," he told reporters, as the ministers gathered in Deauvillle, northern France.

Launched in 2004 and numbering around 2,500 peacekeepers, the EU Althea force's aims are to ensure security in Bosnia under the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in the 1990s.

It also conducts de-mining and air traffic control activities, as well as monitoring military movements, particularly around weapons arsenals.

But security has improved markedly in recent years, and the capture of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is on trial for genocide, has further helped foster stability.

"We are going to look at the options, one of which could be to declare that the military tasks are over, and to think about some transition mechanism, either with civilians or a rapid reaction force that could deploy at any time should things deteriorate," he said, on condition of anonymity.

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