The Grand Duchy will provide satellite communications and space surveillance; the Netherlands will provide 150 soldiers, Boxer armoured vehicles and a medical unit, and Belgium will participate in the rapid deployment capability with “niche capabilities ", according to Luxembourg’s defence minister François Bausch, the Netherlands’ Kajsa Ollongren and Ludivine Dedonder of Belgium.
EU countries have pledged to be able to deploy a force of 5,000 soldiers capable of fighting in hostile terrain, European Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.
The battlegroups created by the EU in 2007 are not suitable for this type of action, Borrell clarified; but they will serve as a basis for rapid deployment capacity, said the Benelux ministers. Dedonder confirmed that Belgium will participate in a battlegroup in 2024.
Germany will “take control” of this European capacity, the three ministers announced.
The EU will also strengthen its military headquarters in Brussels, in order to acquire appropriate command and control to plan and conduct European military operations, added the ministers.
In terms of the plan, the three Benelux countries are “logistically inseparable” and will therefore jointly acquire, maintain and operate reconnaissance drones, according to the statement.
The ministers concluded their joint statement by saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin had achieved the opposite of his goal to divide the EU and NATO.
"[Putin’s] decision to invade Ukraine acts as a turbocharger for European cohesion. We have become more united, more determined, more focused on our collective interests, both in the European Union and in NATO”, they said.
