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EU: Defence chiefs decide on battle groups, gendarmerie

01 August 2004

At their informal meeting in September in Noordwijk, Netherlands, EU defence ministers approved plans for a highly trained, rapid deployable 15,000 strong military force by 2007. The force would be broken down into eight to ten battle groups of 1,500 specialising in everything from civil emergencies to jungle warfare and full-blown conflict; it should be able to deploy within 15 days. The idea is that larger EU members (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland) would put up their own battle groups while the smaller countries should pool. The plan is, as the Guardian puts it, that the units "would react quickly, guns blazing as need be, to a crisis" and then make way for more traditional UN or regional "peacekeeping" forces in trouble spots. The battle groups could also form the spearhead for the 60,000 strong EU main rapid reaction force. Britain and France - the important sponsors of the plan - talk of Africa as being the main theatre of action for the battle groups. In the course of 2005 the first two or three battle groups should become available.

The ministers also decided positively on the French proposal for an 800-strong European gendarmerie (militarised police) force with headquarters in Italy, to be deployed rapidly (30 days) in the management of situations just after a crisis has occurred (riot control). Just as with the battle groups, there will be no geographical limitations. Five countries who have already this kind of gendarme-type police (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands) would take the lead here. It will be open for others in the future. Britain's defence minister Geoff Hoon took the opportunity to stress that other European countries should spend more on defence. "You can certainly get more capability out of existing money by coordinating your money", he said. "But I do think that right across Europe we need to see governments to spend more on defence to reflect the enhanced threat that we face."