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EU countries decide to set up their own first peacekeeping force

In view of the increasingly precarious security situation worldwide, the European Union is working flat out on a new rapid military intervention force with up to 5,000 soldiers.

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EU countries decide to set up their own first peacekeeping force

In view of the increasingly precarious security situation worldwide, the European Union is working flat out on a new rapid military intervention force with up to 5,000 soldiers. Depending on requirements, the “EU Rapid Deployment Capacity” (RDC) should include not only ground troops, but also air and naval forces.

According to information from WELT AM SONNTAG, the EU defense ministers want to make a fundamental decision on Tuesday: the first two of five planned scenarios for the military operation are to be adopted.

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell explained the project to WELT AM SONNTAG: “As a first step, we created two possible deployment scenarios for the EU intervention force: rescue and evacuation operations and, as a second scenario, the beginning (initial phase) of a stabilization mission. These deployment scenarios will help us to further define the required capabilities for the EU Response Force and hold the first military exercise in the second half of 2023.” This is to take place in Spain. Germany wants to be the first country to lead the new intervention force after it starts in 2025. However, this has not yet been decided.

An evacuation mission is primarily about rescuing European citizens from crisis regions in an emergency. There should not be another largely unplanned withdrawal like in the summer of 2021 from Afghanistan. One would like to prepare for such cases in good time. Somalia or Libya would be conceivable as target countries for such a scenario.

A stabilization mission means that crisis response forces, if necessary with robust military means, bring about stability and secure peace in the short term. The soldiers could be heavily armed. From today's perspective, possible locations for this could be the Ukraine or Moldova.

The security expert at the Berlin-based Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Markus Kaim, said the new task force could also be used to secure a "protection zone in Ukraine" - for example, if the UN agrees to a future ceasefire agreement between Moscow and Kyiv mandate for a peacekeeping force.

Forerunners of the new EU intervention force are the so-called Battle Groups. However, they were never used, so there were considerable financing problems, and their deployment suffered from the unwillingness of the member states to send enough troops. That should change now.

The training is significantly intensified. In addition, there should be different combinable "modules", depending on the deployment requirements: For example, a politically organized wave of refugees, such as that from Belarus to Poland at the end of 2021 and at the beginning of this year, has to be reacted to differently than in the case of a stabilization deployment that leads to a conflict at an early stage should prevent.

Another new feature is that the participating states will no longer have to bear the costs of training and deploying soldiers themselves. Exactly how the new task force will be funded, however, is still the subject of intense debate. A significant part of the funds is likely to come from a special fund for global EU crisis operations: the European Peace Facility.

EU chief diplomat Borrell said the new force is "crucial to enable the EU to respond quickly, robustly and effectively to conflicts and crises, both in our immediate neighborhood and beyond". The unit is one of "the most important results of the strategic compass that was decided in March 2022".

The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, David McAllister (CDU), emphasized that it would make the EU "more capable of acting" in the future: "Judging by the hurdles that European cooperation in security and defense policy has had to overcome in recent years, this intervention force is a milestone.” The concept must be implemented “by 2025 at the latest”.

The new intervention force is intended to help better enforce the security interests of the EU. However, it is expressly not intended to compete with NATO. An EU document from March states: "NATO is and will remain the foundation of the common defense of its members."

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