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The European Union Rapid Reaction Force is a transnational^{[citation needed]} military force managed by the European Union^{[citation needed]} itself rather than any of its member states. Following the initial declaration in December 1999, the formal agreement founding the ERRF or EURRF was reached on November 22, 2004 and according to statements made by EU officials the first ERRF units will be deployable in 2007. 60,000 soldiers have been available since January, 1st of 2007 which are deployable for at least a year.

The ERRF is not a standing army (units will remain with their national armies when not deployed or on exercise), and national governments will retain the power to decide if their forces will take part in any particular operation. As a result the ERRF can in practice can be considered a "virtual army" which may or may not be ready for rapid redeployment.

The Petersberg tasks, which outline the duties of the ERRF, have been expanded from humanitarian, rescue, and peacekeeping and peacemaking to include 'joint disarmament operation', 'military advice and assistance tasks' and 'post-conflict stabilisation'. It also states that, "all these tasks may contribute to the fight against terrorism, including by supporting third countries in combating terrorism in their territories."[1]

Contents 1 Organisation 1.1 Recent Past 1.2 Complement 2 Relationship with NATO 3 Political consequences in Europe 4 See also 5 External links

Each unit will be composed of some 1500 troops in reinforced battalions. Also known as packets of force these units are believed to be the most flexible and efficient foundation upon which to base the ERRF. Contributions are expected from EU countries, mostly Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In the future, Poland might form its own unit. The remaining 19 present EU countries will contribute troops and may form multi-national units with a few hundred troops from three or four different countries. Typical examples of such a unit would be a Nordic Unit ( consisting of Danish, Swedish and Finnish troops ) or a Benelux Unit ( Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourgian troops ).

The ERRF has already completed its first mission (as per the December 1999 declaration of intent by EU members), known as "Operation Concordia". During the operation, European Union troops^{[citation needed]} watched over growing civil unrest in Macedonia due to ethnic tensions between the Macedon majority and Albanian minority in the east of the country. These tensions have abated since the approval by the Macedonian Parliament of a set of legislative measures recognising the rights of the Albanian minority. In a sense the stirrings of nationalism in the Albanian community was a direct result of the 1999 Kosovo War and the subsequent quasi-independence enjoyed by Kosovar Albanians. The ERRF is acknowledged to have completed its mission successfully and a smaller follow-up mission which comprises assisting and training Macedonian police has recently begun.

In all, there is talk of a total 60-80,000 troops being involved,^{[citation needed]} and the support system behind any 1500-member unit would be considerable. There are yet no firm numbers of air or naval forces to be involved, but these will be part of the ERRF as the need arises.

EU members have already selected troops for taking part in ERRF operations. Despite being at the orders of the EU,^{[citation needed]} the ERRF would contain national forces who could only obey 'European' orders through explicit consent of 'national' military commanders, in the same way as the "double command" of the UNPROFOR.

The main raison d'être of the ERRF is to carry out peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks which European Union troops have shown themselves to be excellently trained at, albeit in the missions in which they have chosen. Most recently this was demonstrated in Iraq, where British, Italian, Polish and Spanish troops have had the most success in bringing rest to their respective areas, although whether this is on a long term basis remains to be seen as of 2006. It should be noted that this mission is compleletly independent of the EU and cannot be taken to 'prove' the possible effectiveness of the ERRF.

Depending on opinions, NATO can be seen as occupying the "ecological niche" of the ERRF. The USA seems to favour a stronger NATO, where European countries would increase their defence spending, allowing European countries to strengthen their forces thereby becoming less reliant on US forces. This is backed by US proposals to withdraw tens of thousands of US troops from bases in Germany, Britain and Italy.

A consequence of this would be the freeing up of US troops for offensive (possibly unilateral) operations, while, at the same time, deployment of the new European forces using NATO derived command elements (albeit only those NATO elements that are specifically European in nature and without US input) in projection operations may be conditional to US approval — a situation not well-perceived in most European capitals, although the downside is somewhat illusory as there is nothing to stop European nation states forces from acting unilaterally either should they so wish.^{[citation needed]}

To illustrate, selective use of NATO depending on the national interest of the US has been seen in the past. For instance, as well as the decision to ignore NATO's invocation of Article 5 following the September 11, 2001 attacks — NATO troops featured minimally in Afghanistan (the Pentagon wanted complete control in conducting the war on its own terms) and were completely absent from the 2003 Iraq War.

The ERRF's primary tasking would be that of peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance, but may very well feature the use of force as an offensive tool in UN operations against brutal regimes - given sufficient building up of confidence in European capitals. While the ERRF is a body of the EU, it will in practice do the bidding of the major nation-states (who will contribute most of the troops and funding): France, Germany and Britain. Only a determined and unanimous coalition of smaller European countries could succeed in mobilising the ERRF against the wishes of these three heavy-weights. The ERRF will also serve as tangible evidence of the political weight of the EU, in combination to its economic weight — and will most certainly illustrate the European construction .

It is almost certain that the EU body with the greatest voice over the ERRF will be the European Council. The European Council is composed of the nation-states that will individually contribute to the ERRF, and so will expect to have control over its use; despite having 25 (27 in 2007) members perhaps, 5-6 will have the greatest influence in promoting or blocking any proposed ERRF action: Britain, France, Germany, Italy and possibly Spain and Poland. Should there be a foreign policy dispute between these Big Six, if sufficient support persists among the rest of the EU members, then an opt-out for the dissenting countries will probably apply, but great attempts will be made to prevent any public war of words between the major players.

• European Union Battlegroups
• Eurocorps
• European Gendarmerie Force
• European Union rapid reaction mechanism

• Derek Brown, The Guardian, 11 April 2001, "The European Rapid Reaction Force"
• European Commission, "ESDP: Commission proposes Rapid Reaction Facility to mobilise civilian crisis instruments", 11 April 2000
• Foreign Policy Research Center report
• The presentation of the Eurocorps-Foreign Legion concept with EU battle groups at the European Parliament in June 2003
• Dr. Julian Lindley-French "Boosting Europe's military muscle - the build-up and future of the EU rapid reaction force"
• Philip Butterworth-Hayes, Aerospace America February 2001, "The Rapid Reaction Force: What does it bode?"