On 12-13 April 2011 the International EUMS Deployability Conference took place in the MoD Military History Institute and Museum, Budapest, Hungary. This was the fifth EUMS Deployability Conference, after the ones held in Helsinki (Nov 06), Lisbon (Nov 07), Prague (Mar 09) and Seville (Mar 10). At this conference we had more than fifty participants from several multinational organizations and agencies as well as national representatives.

The aim of the conference was to gain a holistic understanding of the deployment challenges that the EU faces and to update participants on key initiatives put in place or being explored by the EU Military Staff and other EU actors. In particular, they set out to investigate further new ideas and requirements for deployability, improve EU deployability concepts and SOPs, and to share and update information on activities being undertaken by movement and transportation (M&T) organisations in support of EU-led military operations. The conference had an emphasized focus on the provision of military transport to EU disaster response operations, with perspectives provided from the EU Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

In an attempt to achieve the closest possible coherence with strategic partners, this conference had taken place just prior to a NATO command structure level meeting called NATO Movement and Transportation Forum that was held at the same place on the 14th. Since the participants of the two conferences overlapped, we managed to gain synergy on specific topics. Both of these meetings harmonize with the multinational approach, help us achieve our objectives and encourage all EU nations to pool and share their capabilities with each other.

László Vastagh

Photo: Tünde Rácz