European Air Transport Command

The European Air Transport Command (EATC) is a command centre that directs the use of most military fixed wing air transport assets owned by the three Benelux countries, France and Germany. Located at Eindhoven Airbase in the Netherlands, it aims to provide a more efficient use of the air transport capacities by means of pooling the various assets, and thereby making them available to the participating nations.

It is in the European Defence Agency's "category A" for defence programmes between member states.

Franco-German initiative
In 1999 France and Germany started a politico-military initiative to “prepare the establishment of a European Air Transport Command”. A report made by the presidency of the European Union the meeting of the European Council in Helsinki the same year, mentions the expressed will of the Union's member states to develop collective coals for rapid capability, including in the area of strategic transport. This was to be achieved voluntarily, to better co-ordinate national and international efforts for the carrying-out of the full range of so-called Petersberg tasks.

A study conducted conducted by the European Air Group (EAG) in 2000 came to the conclusion, that it would be beneficial to co-ordinate the international military airlift requirements and the means to meet them between the EAG nations to exploit all possible synergies. It finally recommended to establish a permanent co-ordination element managing the airlift co-ordination needs of nations in an evolutionary approach by smoothly transferring competencies from existing national structures. This multinational management structure should be developed step by step from purely co-ordination to a combined entity with full command authority.

Airlift Coordination Cell
The member states of the EAG decided in June 2001 to establish the European Airlift Coordination Cell (EACC) as a first step on this way with the objective to improve the efficiency by identifying spare military airlift capacities and sharing this information with interested nations as offer for additional opportunities. The idea was to improve the utilisation of European military air transport and aerial refueling capabilities and hereby gaining synergetic effects. This entity proved its success as the savings exceeded the operating costs of this cell in the first year.

Airlift Centre
Consequently, as a next step EACC member Nations decided in June 2003 to further develop this cell by increasing the mission scope and responsibility. The European Airlift Centre (EAC) was established, which indeed on paper received an increased responsibility over the planning of air transport requests and additionally in the field of harmonisation of air transport related regulations. However the political will to transfer adequate levels of authority towards the EAC to fulfil these additional tasks was not strong enough. Therefore France and Germany agreed on the next step expressing their aspiration for the creation of a multinational air transport command.

On the seventh Franco-German Ministerial Council on 12 October 2006 it was decided to create a common strategic command for airlifts. Other member states of the EAC (Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway) were invited to join. Belgium and Netherlands did so by signing a note of accession. In May 2007 the chiefs of defence staffs of the four participating nations approved the EATC concept which set the framework for the working process as well as the defined levels of responsibilities and gave the stimulus for further negotiations for the implementation of this new headquarter. A international implementation team based in Beauvechain (Belgium) facilitated the final decision to locate the command in Eindhoven, as well as in getting the Technical Arrangement as the interim legal framework signed by the nations in summer 2010.

Establishment
The European Air Transport command was officially established on 1 July 2010. On 1 September 2010 the inauguration took place at Eindhoven, in the presence of political and military leaders of the four participating nations; France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. 22 November 2012, Luxembourg acceded to the EATC, and it is expected that Spain will follow suit.

Participating nations
The following countries have signalled their interest in joining the EATC:

Commander
The command is rotating every two years between France and Germany.

Mission
On 1 September 2010 the EATC took over the operational control of most of the participating nation's military cargo aircraft (excluding helicopters) of which the existing fleet of Transall C-160 and C-130 Hercules form the largest part. In the future all Airbus A400M shall be put under the command of the EATC (beginning with the official delivery to the nations). A strong motivation for the establishment of the EATC was the limited availability of assets and the operational necessity to co-operate very closely. The A400M is considerably delayed while the inclusion of European troops in combat missions has increased over the years including many overseas missions.

Germany reorganises its Lufttransportkommando (LTKdo) in Münster – the aircraft personnel will be assigned back to the Luftwaffendivision air combat groups and the LTKdo command center itself will retire on 31 December 2010. The EATC takes over authority on 15 October 2010 after being implemented on 1 September 2010. 65 members of the LTKdo have been moved to Eindhoven and Major General Jochen Both takes over the command of the EATC coordination center which has a total staff of 200 members. The command is supposed to switch to a French air force general after two years.

Fleet
As of 23. November 2011 the assigned fleet consists of