On Monday 25 June, the Foreign Affairs Council invited member states to take measures at national level to improve the effectiveness of military mobility within the European Union.
In the conclusions on security and defence adopted, ministers call for measures to be taken “as soon as possible but no later than 2024”.
The Council would like in reality for the first measures to be effective by end 2019. It thus calls for the development of national military mobility plans, for which implementation must be a “high priority”.
Member states should speed up border crossing procedures and, to this end, work together with relevant national authorities with a view to granting authorisations for cross border movement within five working days for routine activities. Also concerned are requests for authorisation to enter and movements in the land, air and maritime areas.
It is even envisaged that this time frame will be reduced further for rapid response units.
The member states should also facilitate and accelerate communication and procedures and, for this, “create a robust interconnected network of national contact points for all aspects relating to military mobility so that, among other things, they are able to deal rapidly with requests for cross-border movements”.
Finally, the Council calls for the existing appropriate national and multinational exercises to be used to practice military mobility more regularly, including during real exercises, as well as troop movements announced in a very short delay.
Progress will be examined each year by the Council which will come back to the subject by summer 2019 “mainly by defining, if possible, more ambitious objectives and delays”.
On Monday 25 June, the Council also approved “as a first stage in implementation of the action plan” on military mobility presented at the end of March (see EUROPE 11991), the “comprehensive high level chapter of military requirements in military mobility within and outside the EU”. Member states undertook to finalise “by early July 2018”, the technical specificities relating to transport infrastructures, vehicles and cargoes.
The geographical identification of the necessary infrastructures should be ready to be validated by the third quarter 2018 at the latest, ministers add.
Upon arriving at the Council, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that military mobility was an “important area” for cooperation between the EU and NATO, with the Alliance having invested €2 billion in this field over the past four years.
“We must be able to displace forces rapidly throughout Europe when it is necessary”, he explained.
In its conclusions, the Council also takes up permanent structured cooperation (see related article), the capability development plan, coordinated annual review of defence (CARD), and the single force structure.
The European Defence Fund, the European Peace Facility, strengthening of civilian CSDP and security and defence partnerships, which are the subject of specific Commission proposals for the period 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 12040) were thus reviewed.
See the conclusions (in English) here: https://bit.ly/2lpc5ZM (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)