The EU says it has taken a significant step towards creating a common defence culture with two new agreements to boost the exchange of young military officers within training colleges around the EU. Under the agreements announced on 11 March, the EU said a boost had been given to the smooth working of the military equivalent of the Erasmus student exchange programme.

“With these two cornerstones in place, the initiative takes a major step towards its goals: not only increasing the number of exchanges of young cadets so that they are on a par with their civilian counterparts, but making sure that these exchanges are useful for both the cadet and his home member state,” said a statement from the EU Council. “This will strengthen the interoperability of the armed forces and promote a European security and defence culture.”

The first agreement concluded with the European Security and Defence college will sweep away much of the red tape involved in cross-border military training. The second establishes a mutually recognisable credit system so that achievements gained by the cadets on their exchange courses will be recognised in their home countries. The so-called ‘Erasmus Militaire’ project was launched in November 2008 to allow officer cadets to benefit from experience in other EU nations and enhance understanding and cooperation among European armed forces.

The EU also launched a new weekly online newsletter about Common Security and Defence Policy on the www.consilium.europa.eu website. The first edition, with articles in French and English, carried reports on Catherine Ashton’s visit to Haiti, an update on the antipiracy mission off Somalia and gender issue training given to Congolese troops by the EU mission in the country’s violence-torn east.

The agreement is available at www.europolitics.info > Search = 268229