The European Union gives the green light to a common defense plan and foresees the deployment of 5,000 soldiers

Member States of the European Union have given the green light to the common defense strategy with which the bloc will gain military capacity and better coordinate national efforts in the field of defense during the next decade.

The last draft of the ‘strategic compass’ It has been agreed by the foreign and defense ministers at their joint meeting in Brussels, according to diplomatic sources. It is a plan that establishes a common understanding of Defense, with objectives such as having the capacity to deploy 5,000 rapid response forces at EU level in the event of a crisis.

At a press conference in Brussels, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, celebrated the agreement, ensuring that the EU has to play a greater role to provide security to its citizens.

“We do not live in the world that we would like, but in the one we live in,” he said, later pointing out that the EU has a neighborhood “on fire” and the war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call.

Despite defending that the EU must be able to react quickly, the head of community diplomacy has clarified that the 5,000 rapid deployment troops it is not the germ of a European Army, and that the Twenty-seven will maintain their armed forces. It is about European countries acting in a more coordinated way in the field of Defense and being “a better partner” within NATO, she explained.

Specifically, the document that will now be endorsed by the Heads of State and Government at the summit this Thursday, raises that in 2025 the Twenty-seven are ready to deploy these forces. Without a fixed structure, member states are expected to provide means for a modular force of up to 5,000 soldiers.

Before, by the end of this year, EU countries commit to agree on operational scenarios and Defense plans, with the idea of ​​starting European military maneuvers in 2023 with which to increase the preparation and interoperability of these forces.

The new boost to EU security and defense responds, according to the European strategy, to “a more hostile environment and geopolitical trends that require the bloc to assume a greater part of the responsibility for its own security”, a reality that the war in Ukraine has made even more apparent.

Although the idea of ​​having a European White Paper on Defense was born two years ago, its approval coincides with the return to a theater of war in Europe. Moreover, the Ukrainian crisis is mentioned several times in the document and is said to have made clear the need to improve the “military mobility of the armed forces inside and outside the Union”.

Relationship with NATO

At all times the ‘strategic compass’ is structured as a complement to NATO. The plan indicates that cooperation between the two organizations is “essential for Euro-Atlantic security, as Russian military aggression against Ukraine has shown.”

And to continue cooperation “close and mutually beneficial”, EU countries propose to increase high-level meetings with NATO. “Specific exchanges will be reinforced through joint meetings meetings of the Political and Security Committee of the EU and the North Atlantic Council”, advocated the Twenty-seven.

The EU is also committed to reinforcing its military and civilian missions abroad, giving “more flexible” mandateswith the idea of ​​promoting faster decision-making and better ensuring financial solidarity with operations.

Regarding civil missions, the Twenty-seven set for the middle of next year the approval of plans to improve the effectiveness of operations as well as the deployment capacity, all with the idea of ​​being able to command complex security environments to a team of up to 200 experts within 30 days.