Strasbourg, 30 September 2003.- Assembly President Marcel Glesener visited the headquarters of the European Corps at the Aubert de Vincelles Barracks in Strasbourg yesterday. He was received by Commanding General Jean Louis Py (France) who took over his command earlier this month during the ceremony for the 10th anniversary of the multinational force. A briefing on the Eurocorps’ role in NATO and under the ESDP was given by the National Representative of Luxembourg, Major Grisius.

President Glesener said after the meetings that the Eurocorps had always been a very important testing ground and a precursor of European security and defence cooperation at force level. It would now be preparing for operations covering the full range of Petersberg tasks. He welcomed proposals to use the Eurocorps’ capabilities for future missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Afghanistan.

President Glesener recalled that the Eurocorps could only be deployed if all five framework nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain) agreed. The rule of consensus would apply to deployments at the request of NATO and the EU alike and regardless of whether it concerned units only or a headquarters. “We must work hard in order to muster the necessary political will”, Mr Glesener added. Decision-making could take time and once the headquarters was deployed, the EU would have to ask member states to provide the command for successor missions. He therefore suggested that it would be better if the EU had at least three permanently available and deployable multinational headquarters at its disposal.

The President referred to Assembly Recommendation 716 on “Multinational European Forces” and the corresponding report of the Defence Committee submitted by its Chairman John Wilkinson, MP (United Kingdom, Federated Group) and adopted on 3 December 2002 (the report can be downloaded from the Assembly’s website http://assembly.weu.int in the documents section).

President Glesener also said that new forms of funding for European multinational forces such as the Eurocorps, Eurofor or Euromarfor should be considered, particularly for cases in which such forces were deployed at the request of the European Union.