May 23, 200520 yr EU Creates New Rapid Reaction Forces By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BRUSSELS DefenceNews The European Union on May 23 launched two new “battle group” rapid response forces, part of a growing number of such units able to rush to crisis zones worldwide. France, Germany and Spain agreed to set up one such force, while Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Germany also signed an agreement to create another at a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels. The force is a “concrete contribution to the rapid reaction capacities that the European Union has decided it wants to have,” French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on the sidelines of the Brussels talks. The EU plans to have 13 rapid response “battle groups” in operation by 2007, and sees them as a major step in matching its economic and growing political strength with military muscle. The 1,500-strong tactical groups, which will put flesh on long-standing EU plans to have an independent military capacity, will be able to be deployed within 15 days and remain on the ground for up to four months. Alliot-Marie, who was accompanied by Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono and junior German defense minister Peter Eickenboom, said such forces of “immediate intervention could help prevent a conflict from deteriorating.” The groups are an illustration the EU’s new strategy of deploying quickly to conflict zones, exemplified by the Artemis mission, deployed to quell violence in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the summer of 2003. Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Norway, which is not an EU member, were expected to agree on another battle group later in the day.
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