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EU: Battle groups plan adopted

01 November 2004

At a foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on 22 November, also attended by the defence ministers, EU nations formally committed themselves to having 13 military battle groups ready by the end of 2007. The battle groups, each 1,500 strong, will operate on a rotating basis to respond to international trouble spots. The units will be formed by individual or groups of nations. They will each be associated with a force headquarters and with pre-identified operational and strategic assets such as strategic transport and logistics and be reinforced with combat support elements. France, Italy, the UK and Spain will form the one-nation battle groups next year, giving the EU one available rotating group at any time from late 2005. The other (multinational) groups will be formed by 2007 and after that two groups will be simultaneous on call at any time. They will have five to ten days notice to deploy and be self-supporting for four months. For a decision to deploy EU consensus is required. However constructive abstention is possible. A EU military official was quoted in the Independent as saying that the groups "can conduct expeditionary operations, something that can, at short notice, mount flash to bang operations when the Council of ministers says so." The short notice for deployment makes national parliamentary control in advance difficult (this differs from country to country).

EU battle groups:

* France
* Italy
* UK
* Spain
* France, Germany, Belgium Luxembourg and Spain
* France and Belgium
* Germany, the Netherlands and Finland
* Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria
* Italy, Hungary and Slovenia
* Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal
* Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania
* Sweden, Finland and Norway (non EU member)
* UK and the Netherlands

Independent 22.11.04 (Stephen Castle); Scotsman 22.11.04; Jane's Defence Weekly 1.12.04 (Luke Hill)sti