EUFOR Althea

EUFOR Althea logo

European Union Force Althea is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Agreement. It is the successor to NATO's SFOR and IFOR. The transition from SFOR to EUFOR was largely a change of name and commanders: 80% of the troops remained in place.^[1] It replaced the NATO-led SFOR on 2 December 2004.

General Aspects

Civilian implementation of the Dayton Agreement is enforced by the Office of High Representative. EUFOR has 2,503 troops from 27 countries,^[2] mostly from the countries of the European Union. There are however, additional troops from other countries such as Chile and Turkey.

EUFOR's commander is currently Major General Dieter Heidecker (Austria), since December 2012.^[3] For this mission, the European Union Military Staff is using NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) as the EU's Operational Headquarters (OHQ) and is working through the Deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a European officer.

The EUFOR assumed all the missions of the SFOR, except for the hunt for individuals indicted by the war criminals tribunal, notably Radovan Karadžić, former leader of Republika Srpska, and Ratko Mladić, their former military leader, which remained a mission for NATO^[1] through NATO Headquarters Sarajevo.^[4] The EUFOR does have police duties against organised crime, which is believed to be linked to suspected war criminals.^[5] It works with the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) and with the Bosnian Police.

As of September 2012, the total force of EUFOR are at 900 troops from 26 nations. The Troop-Contributing Nations (TCNS) are as follows: from the EU: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK; and from outside the EU: Albania, Chile, Macedonia, Switzerland, and Turkey.^[6]

Commanders

• British Major General David Leakey, 2 December 2004 – 6 December 2005
• Italian Major General Gian Marco Chiarini, 6 December 2005 – 5 December 2006
• German Rear Admiral Hans-Jochen Witthauer, 5 December 2006 – 4 December 2007
• Spanish Major General Ignacio Martín Villalaín, 4 December 2007 – 4 December 2008^[7]
• Italian Major General Stefano Castagnotto, 4 December 2008 – 3 December 2009
• Austrian Major General Bernhard Bair, 4 December 2009 – 6 December 2011
• Austrian Major General Robert Brieger, 6 December 2011 – 3 December 2012
• Austrian Major General Dieter Heidecker, 3 December 2012 – 17 December 2014
• Austrian Major General Johann Luif, 17 December 2014 – present

See also

• Military of the European Union
• European Union rapid reaction mechanism
• Common Security and Defence Policy

References

Further reading

• Le Monde (in French)
• EUFOR Althea: Appraisal and Future Perspectives of the EU’s Former Flagship Operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EU Diplomacy Paper 7/2011
• Dominik Tolksdorf The Difficulties of the European Union in Supporting the Europeanization of Bosnia and Herzegovina EU Frontier Policy Paper, Budapest: Center for EU Enlargement Studies – Central European University, 2011

External links

• Official EUFOR website
• The Council of the European Union's page on EUFOR-Althea
• The European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for Bosnia and Herzegovina
• the European Commission's Delegation to Bosnia & Herzegovina
• European Defense
• Swiss Military Department EUFOR page (in French)

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