EU battle forces cannot go to the front fast enough, says European Court of Auditors

The armies of Member States of the European Union can “not move fast enough” about the European continent. That is what the European Court of Audit has Wednesday in a report concluded. The aim that the EU sets itself, “to move military personnel, equipment and stocks quickly and seamlessly inside and outside the EU – both in the short term and on a large scale,” has not yet been achieved.

What gets in the way of the rapid relocation of armies is “administrative hassle,” writes the Court of Audit. For example, tanks from one EU country are sometimes not allowed to drive through the other because they are too heavy to meet the local traffic rules. In other cases, defense equipment is not allowed to cross a bridge because the vehicles are too heavy. EU countries still have to ask each other for a month and a half before a relocation over a national border for permission.

The fast and efficient supply of military equipment and vehicles from Western Europe to the east has become a central part of the NATO strategy. With regard to military mobility, Russia has an advantage in the Ukraine war. Through the Russian ‘Hinterland’, Moscow can supply everything that is needed for a long -term exhaustion stroke. Transports from the Netherlands or Belgium, on the other hand, have to go through three or four countries to reach the ‘Eastern Front’.

In 2021, the EU cleared 1.7 billion euros for the improvement of military mobility, to be spent between 2021 and 2027. However, the “demand was much greater than the supply,” said the Court of Audit, which already applied the money at the end of 2023 . Now the EU will be without money for this project for the next four years.

In addition to the desire to make the ‘finance more predictable’, the Court of Audit proposes to set up a central body that will take care of military mobility. Representatives of Member States who were visited for the report said that the rules are too complicated and that it is difficult to know who is responsible for what.

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