Ireland's participation in the European Union's new rapid response battlegroups is being brought forward steadily by the Government. Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea confirmed yesterday that negotiations with Sweden on Irish participation in the Nordic group is making progress.
He intends to introduce legislation allowing Irish troops to be trained overseas and enabling them to be sent on humanitarian emergencies. These are necessary adaptations of policy and procedure and will bring a new framework for involvement in United Nations operations, as well as those where there is no formal UN mandate.
In his recent speeches Mr O'Dea has repeated his view that the term battlegroups is misleading. It is a technical term for a coherent military force able to operate in a stand-alone fashion with full logistic and transport support, normally numbering 1,500 troops. The mandate for their development comes from the EU's security and defence policy developed over the last 10 years in response to changing international conditions. They are described as "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking".
The EU is committed to organising 60,000 troops for such preparedness by next year. It is expected they would be used especially as a rapid reaction force on security or humanitarian emergencies. Mr O'Dea referred to the need to avoid other Srebrenicas or Rwandas and the concept has been developed with those tragedies in mind. Increasingly, the UN has turned to regional organisations like the EU and the Africa Union to carry out such tasks, or to act ahead of the deployment of larger forces. Ireland's triple-lock system governing the deployment of troops overseas would remain in place, requiring approval by the Government, the Oireachtas and an explicit UN mandate. But this should not inhibit training and operational involvement with the Nordic group, or with other ones in future. Talks are also being held with Finland and Austria. These states share Ireland's commitment to values of military neutrality and are the appropriate ones with which to develop closer military relations within the EU.
At present Irish troops cannot legally train overseas with other forces and can only volunteer individually for humanitarian operations in natural or man-made disasters such as the tsunami in southeast Asia or the earthquake in Pakistan. The legislation would allow the Government to deploy a contingent of the Defence Forces to such emergencies without a formal UN mandate. This is a sensible change meriting close legal and political scrutiny and public debate. Public opinion strongly supports Ireland's overseas military operations, which are a legitimate source of pride. Properly defined and managed, the EU battlegroup concept can present new opportunities for that involvement. Mr O'Dea should be commended for bringing forward these new ideas.