European Union Military Staff

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European Union
This article is part of the series: Defence of the European Union
CFSP High Representative Javier Solana Foreign and Security Policy Security and Defence Policy Defence Initiative Defence Procurement Petersberg tasks Foreign relations
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Military Forces
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Related organisations
Western European Union North Atlantic Treaty Organization
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The European Union Military Staff (EUMS) is a department of the European Union, responsible for supervising operations within the realm of the European Security and Defence Policy. It is directly attached to the private office of the High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, currently Javier Solana, and is formally part of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union.

In addition to providing strategic advice to the High Representative, the EUMS reports to the European Union Military Committee (EUMC), an intergovernmental Council body made up of the Chiefs of Defence. Its main task is to perform "early warning, situation assessment and strategic planning for Petersberg tasks" and to implement ESDP missions (2001/80/CFSP, annex article 2) such as EUFOR Althea and the other European Union Force missions in Chad/CAR and the DR Congo. The EUMS current consists of 200+ military and civilian personnel.

The EUMS is located in the Kortenberg building, a short distance from the Berlaymont building, at Avenue de Kortenburg 150, B-1040 Brussels. Nearby is the Belgian Royal Military Academy building.

EUMS is headed by a three star Director-general, a post not to be confused with the four-star chairman of the EUMC.

The EUMS does not directly control the EU military missions. In conjunction with NATO, as required, an Operational Headquarters (OHQ) is nominated. The OHQ directs the Force Headquarters or FHQ, also provided by a member country, which carries out the operation on the ground. Five national operational headquarters have been made available for use by the Union to fulfil the OHQ role. The French CPCO - Centre de Planification et de Conduite des Opérations - is situated at the à l'État major des Armées, 231 boulevard St Germain, in Paris. Near Paris also is the French Mont Valérien command-and-control facility, where a French declared OHQ for EU operations is located. (It is not clear if the French Mont Valerien facility has a national designation). The others are the British PJHQ at the Northwood Headquarters northwest of London, Germany's Armed Forces Operational Command near Potsdam, Centocelle in Rome and Larissa. The selected OHQ runs the operation at the strategic level. For example, Operation Artemis used Mont Valérien as its OHQ and EUFOR's DR Congo operation used Potsdam.^[1] The second option is to use NATO facilities, under 'Berlin plus' arrangements, as was the case for mounting EUFOR Althea, for which SHAPE was used.^[2]

From 1 January 2007, as a third option, the EU Operations Centre also began work in Brussels. It can command a limited size force of about 2000 troops (e.g. a battlegroup).