Develop EU Military Mobility with military staff and workers

Yesterday, on November 19, the European Commission published its EU Military Mobility Package, with the aim to make armed forces in Europe move across borders as fast as possible in defined crisis situations, cutting the friction that would slow any large-scale military reinforcement especially towards the EU#s the eEastern flank. According to CESI, the foreseen mobility mechanism can only funciton if the Package is deployed together with the military and civilian staff in the armed forces.

Currently, moving heavy units is relatively difficult: it can take weeks of permits and notifications. With the foreseen Package, standardised and mostly digital clearances would be possible so that convoys or rail movements can be authorised much faster. For armies, this would mean that planning shifts from ‘submit paperwork early’ to ‘keep forces ready to roll.’ Armies would gain simpler routing and fewer national idiosyncrasies to navigate. In the Package, around 500 critical choke points – bridges, tunnels, ports, rail nodes – are earmarked for upgrades so they can handle main battle tanks and large logistics flows. This would reduce gaps where units would otherwise detour or offload. Moreover, the package relaxes or aligns rules that commonly block deployments: transport of hazardous goods such as fuel and ammunition, oversize and overweight loads, convoy driving rest rules, and customs-like checks. Armies could, as a result, move with fewer special exemptions each time, and thus much faster.

In sum, the Package aims to achieve nothing less than a de-facto military Schengen, plus a higher degree of military interoperability with NATO.

The Package now moves into the ordinary legislative procedure in the European Parliament and Council.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger  said: “Military mobility is a cornerstone of EU preparedness. The idea of a ‘military Schengen’ is an overdue and necessary step towards a stronger European Defence Union. But from a trade-union perspective, frameworks and corridors on paper will however not deliver speed in practice unless the human factor is properly resourced. We should therefore watch closely how this package is implemented on the ground for both civilian and military personnel.”

CESI underlines that for the system to work effectively and rapidly at EU level, military mobility needs a much larger pool of well-trained staff who can plan and execute rapid, large-scale cross-border movements of troops and equipment by road, rail, air and sea, while integrating smoothly with civilian transport networks. This requires key operational skills for the personnel including in the areas of joint logistics and corridor planning, robust civil–military coordination and multimodal movement control.

According to CESI, equally vital is the ‘paperwork-speed’ competences that cut delays before a single vehicle moves: Staff must be fluent in EU and NATO movement permissions, customs and tax formalities, hazardous-goods rules and the practical use of secure digital tools for shared manifests and real-time route and bottleneck monitoring. Clearances in days rather than weeks require workers that are properly trained, confident and adequately supported.

Klaus Heeger added: “The EU and its Member States must commit to serious, sustained investment in training, rapid skills acquisition, decent staffing levels and quality working conditions. Without that, we risk building fast lanes that lack the skilled workforce needed to keep them moving.”

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