In the context of a growing number of civilian crisis situations, five EU member states with a police force which is military in nature – France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands – have built the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF), an intervention tool whose foundations are based on the Velsen Treaty of 18 October 2007. This does not fall under EU law, but classic international law.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, the need quickly arrived for the Union to be able to warn and, in the event of a failure, manage crises and lead peacekeeping operations autonomously, or as a group. This is the reason for the creation, in January 2003, of a reflection on the projection of police forces which began by sending the first detachment to Bosnia Herzegovina (EUPM), initially equipped with its 550 personnel, including almost 100 French gendarmes. This ensured the relief of missions which, until then, had been fulfilled by NATO through the International Police Task Force.

Placed up against civilian crises, the Union intended, on the one hand, to reinforce local police capacities through training and assistance actions, but also, in the event of failure, to step in to maintain public order. Though the EUPM showed its effectiveness in Yugoslavia, it owes this largely to its civilian-military mix. However, it quickly appeared appropriate, for interventions in the most degraded contexts, justifying the intervention of armed forces and an initial crisis management under military command, to use a better adapted entity. This is how the EGF came into being.

Transition between military and civilian

Likely to be indifferently deployed under military or civilian command, the EGF seems to be the most apt tool to ensure the transition from military to civilian in crisis management. It can even be engaged for prevention, though no deployment of military forces has yet taken place. This project was initiated in Noordwijk (Netherlands) on 17 September 2004, on France’s initiative, and was realised, under the Austrian Presidency, by establishing a permanent headquarters in Vicenza (Italy), on 23 January 2006. An instrument of the EU’s Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the EGF can also be made available for international organisations such as the UN, NATO and the OSCE, or be deployed within ad hoc coalitions.

The EGF does not have any permanent dedicated forces. Its composition is determined according to the missions and the contributions from the five founding countries which draw from a catalogue of capacities written up by their own police forces with a military status: Gendarmerie nationale, Guardia Civil, Carabinieri, Guarda Nacional Republicana, Koninklijke Marechaussee, with reinforcements from identified partners, such as the Polish gendarmerie. The EGF therefore has a rapid deployment capacity of 800 men within 30 days, with an overall reserve of 2,300 personnel. Under the auspices of the permanent multinational headquarters in Vicenza, also projectable, of 30 officers and non-commissioned officers. The projected means are in part regrouped within an Integrated Police Unit (IPU) integrating all the existing police capacities (legal, technical and scientific, administrative, intervention in specialised environments, protection, observation and investigation). To support this IPU, specialised peacekeeping units can be constituted.

The EGF’s political and strategic management falls to a European interministerial committee (CIMIN), gathering the representatives of foreign affairs and defence ministers from the five founding countries. It also coordinates between the parties in the crisis and contributing states. It sets, on a case by case basis, the employment and deployment conditions through specific mandates for each mission.

It is in this strict framework that the relief by the EGF of the police unit deployed in Bosnia – dubbed EUFOR-Althea – began in November 2007, with a staff of about 130.

(*) Yves-Marie Moray is president; General Claude Gervais is first vice-president; Colonel Philippe Gerbault is vice-president for defence of the CED (Culture Economie Défense)