THE EU: The role of EU battlegroups which would be sent into conflict situations at 10 days' notice was outlined by a senior Brussels official in a speech to the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin.
Robert Cooper, a senior adviser to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, said the international community was still thinking "in Cold War mode". Regional conflicts today were more likely to affect what happened outside the region in question. "We need to be ready to act much more quickly than before," said Mr Cooper, author of The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the 21st Century.
In the past one might have a year or more for a military build-up. "That's not today's world," he said. It was necessary to deploy forces much more quickly but "probably in much smaller packages".
"The battlegroup concept is essentially about rapid deployment. A battlegroup is a kind of independent unit of battalion size, about 1,500 men probably, capable of looking after itself, capable of being deployed within 10 days."
The EU target was to be able to make a decision within five days and deploy troops 10 days after that, although he was "not sure that is completely realistic".
The EU had agreed that "for the next couple of years" there would be one such unit on 10-day call, "to travel more or less anywhere in the world". These would rotate every six months.
"In due course, when preparations have been made, we should be in a position to have two battlegroups on call at any one time."
The "real origin" of the concept had been Operation Artemis in 2003, when an EU unit consisting mainly of French troops but with contributions from the UK, Sweden and others (including some Irish involvement at HQ and external support level), intervened at about 10 days' notice in Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The EU battlegroup calmed the situation ahead of the arrival of a full UN peacekeeping force.
Ireland favours the concept of EU battlegroups but no decision has been taken on participation by Irish troops.
