ROME (Reuters) EU governments need to thrust in advance with a European immediate reaction power to be better prepared for long run crises these as in Afghanistan, the EUs international plan main Josep Borrell said.
In an interview posted on Monday, Borrell explained to Italian paper Il Corriere della Sera the limited-discover deployment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan as stability deteriorated confirmed the EU wanted to accelerate efforts to create a common defence plan.
We have to have to draw lessons from this practical experience as Europeans we have not been equipped to deliver 6,000 soldiers about the Kabul airport to secure the space. The US has been, we havent, he claimed.
Borrell explained the 27-member EU really should have a initial entry force of 5,000 soldiers. We want to be in a position to act speedily.
In Could, 14 EU international locations together with Germany and France proposed these a pressure, perhaps with ships and aircraft, to support democratic overseas governments needing urgent enable.
1st mentioned in 1999 in connection with the Kosovo war, a joint method of battlegroups of 1,500 staff every was set up in 2007 to react to crises, but they have not been used mainly because EU governments disagreed on how and when to deploy them.
Borrell mentioned it was time to be adaptable, citing agreements designed swiftly to cope with the economic crisis as an example of how the EU could defeat limitations in the deployment of armed forces operations laid down in its constitutional treaties.
We can function in many diverse ways, he reported.
Britain, long a hesitant EU member, was instrumental in the generation of the battlegroups in the 2000s but did not approve deployment as domestic opposition grew to anything at all that may resemble the generation of an EU army. With Britains departure from the bloc, the EU government hopes the idea can be revived.
But hurdles keep on being, like the lack a widespread defence tradition between the a variety of EU users and variances over which nations should be offered precedence for deployment.
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni and Robin Emmott creating by Sabine Siebold editing by Philippa Fletcher)