EU Takes over for NATO

[Zed Snardbody]

EU Troops Take over for NATO BBC

EU Takes over peace kepping CNN

Start of a united European Force?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The EU is getting the joint force idea ship-shape now. In the future expect to see more action taken as a whole by EU forces rather than one or two nations acting alone. It's to go along with all sorts of new EU things like the EU's own intelligence services being implemented to monitor Europe's data streams (despite the NSA and GCHQ doing this anyway via ECHELON and CARNIVORE).

[Stuart Mackey]

snip links
Start of a united European Force?

Meh, deploying a reinforced brigade {a lot of whom are already there} on one occation does not make a European force. Whats you need is consistancy in doing this and on a larger scale.

[TheDarkling]

Meh, deploying a reinforced brigade {a lot of whom are already there} on one occation does not make a European force. Whats you need is consistancy in doing this and on a larger scale.

They already took over in Macedonia (Operation Concordia ) and then followed it up with a policing mission (Proxima) plus deployed in the Congo last year (operation Artemis).

Taking over in Bosnia is the fifth deployment of forces under the ESDP (3 of which were military and two police), staring out with a police mission under NATO control then taking over a small military mission in Balkans, then a larger mission in the Congo and finally this an even larger mission in the Balkans (from a few hundred to 1.5 thousand to 7 thousand, not huge but something of a rapid increase in just a couple of years).

This is a consistent theme and we are seeing an escalation in both the size of the tasks undertaken and their scope.

[dragon]

Have first hand experience spent that last 3 days putting up with the transfer of authority here in Camp Butmir Sarajevo. At least I will get a EU patch on top of my NATO batch. And of course they decide they wanted all new computer networks and we have spent the last several weeks thrying to get the stupid thing to interface with our systems.

[Stuart Mackey]

Meh, deploying a reinforced brigade {a lot of whom are already there} on one occation does not make a European force. Whats you need is consistancy in doing this and on a larger scale.

They already took over in Macedonia (Operation Concordia ) and then followed it up with a policing mission (Proxima) plus deployed in the Congo last year (operation Artemis).

Taking over in Bosnia is the fifth deployment of forces under the ESDP (3 of which were military and two police), staring out with a police mission under NATO control then taking over a small military mission in Balkans, then a larger mission in the Congo and finally this an even larger mission in the Balkans (from a few hundred to 1.5 thousand to 7 thousand, not huge but something of a rapid increase in just a couple of years).

This is a consistent theme and we are seeing an escalation in both the size of the tasks undertaken and their scope.

Hmm..indeed. The next question I would have, however, is how much of these deployments have been Euro as opposed to primarily a national effort under a Euro banner?

[Oberleutnant]

The EU should have seven, rapid deployment battle groups operational by the year 2007, each of them composed of approximately 1500 soldiers. Other battle groups would follow.



Currently planned battle groups and the nations who participate in them:


* France

* Italy

* Spain

* United Kingdom

* France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain

* France and Belgium

* Germany, the Netherlands, Finland

* Germany, Czech Republic and Austria

* Italy, Hungary and Slovenia

* Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania

* Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal

* Sweden, Finland and Norway

* United Kingdom, and the Netherlands


These EU battle groups are not the same thing as the EURRF, which has now taken over in Bosnia.

[Thinkmarble]

And then there is Eurocorps

Except for the French-German Brigade and the Staff of the Multinational Command Support Brigade (MNCS Bde) that are permanently under operational command of HQ Eurocorps, the national contributions remain under national command in peacetime. They become fully subordinated after Transfer of Authority has been decided by member states.


The type and size of units needed by the Eurocorps have to be determined depending on the assigned mission, likely employment and the expected operational outcome. In the case that all the earmarked national contributions are committed, the Corps would number approximately 60,000 soldiers.

[TheDarkling]

Hmm..indeed. The next question I would have, however, is how much of these deployments have been Euro as opposed to primarily a national effort under a Euro banner?

They have all had contributions from numerous EU countries (plus Norway and Iceland who are practically in the EU anyway and Canada which we always let tag along to annoy the US or something) however in some case one nation does give a large proportion of the forces (usually France).