After more than 20 years since EU member states first discussed the idea of a quick response military instrument, EU Battlegroups are again regaining visibility due to the current institutional efforts to move forward in security and defence.
European militaries are not only engaged in defence missions abroad. They are also active in national search and rescue activities and natural disaster response, with one prominent example being the inclusion of soldiers to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
On 11 December 2017, the Council of the EU adopted the decision to establish the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO Secretariat, 2021). PESCO aims to enhance defence cooperation and army interoperability between EU member states who are willing and able to participate (ibid). Concretely, it provides a framework to increase cooperation in the planning, development, investment, and operability of defence capabilities between the 25 participating EU member states (ibid; EDA, 2021). This way, PESCO is a collaborative effort to create “a coherent full spectrum of defence capabilities available to Member States for national and multinational (EU, NATO, UN, etc.) missions and operations” (PESCO Secretariat, 2021). It is a strong form of cooperation as participation in PESCO entails automatic subscription to the list of legally binding commitments enshrined in article 2 of Protocol 10 annexed to the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) (ibid).
The cancellation of Germany’s Schwerer Transporthubschrauber/STH (Heavy-lift Helicopter) competition and its dismissal of the two US options, combined with a long-term lack of a European alternative, poses the question: is it time for a European Heavy-Lift Helicopter?
At the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit in Warsaw in 2016, NATO heads of state and government decided to strengthen NATO's enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) to further allow the allies to deploy limited military forces to the three Baltic countries and Poland.
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