Cape Verde only war for independence against Portugal between 1974 and 1975, the efforts of the Caboverdean Armed Forces have now been turned to combating international drug trafficking. In 2007, together with the Cape Verdean Police, they carried out Operation Flying Launch ("Operacão Lancha Voador"a), a successful operation to put an end to a drug trafficking group which smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands and Germany using the country as a reorder point. The operation took more than three years, being a secret operation during the first two years, and ended in 2010. Although located in Africa, Cape Verde has always
Cape Verde–European Union relations Bosnia and Herzegovina. In terms of respect of democracy the Freedom house report ranks Cape Verde top in Africa and again Cape Verde has a better ranking than that of some designated "potential candidate or member countries" of the EU: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania. Most of the imports and exports of Cape Verde are for and from the European Union, and it has a service-based economy. Its currency, the escudo, is pegged to the euro. Although the Cape Verde archipelago is geographically in Africa, there have been similar situations before. Cyprus is an island nation that, despite being