Military Planning and Conduct Capability

The Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) is a permanent operational headquarters at the military strategic level for non-executive military missions deployed as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union (EU). The MPCC is part of the EU Military Staff (EUMS), a department of the European External Action Service (EEAS), and will be reporting to the Political and Security Committee (PSC), and informing the EU Military Committee (EUMC).

The MPCC will be single military strategic command and control structure, responsible for the operational planning and conduct of non-executive missions. This includes the building up, deployment, sustaining and recovery of EU forces.

The MPCC will at present control the three EU training missions in Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia.

The MPCC will cooperate with its existing civilian counterpart, the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC), through a Joint Support Coordination Cell (JSCC).

Director
The Director General of the EUMS will be the Director of the MPCC and in that capacity assume the function of the single commander for all non-executive military missions, exercising command and control over the current three training Missions and other possible future non-executive military Missions.

The current three Mission Commanders will become ‘Mission Force Commanders’ who will act under the command of the Director of the MPCC and will remain responsible for exercising military command authority on the ground. The Director of the MPCC will assume the same role, tasks and command relationships as those attributed to a military Operation Commander (OpCdr). He will also exercise the responsibilities related to deployment and recovery of the missions as well as overall budgeting, auditing and reporting.

Possible mandate extension
EU officials have indicated that a review in 2018 might extend the MOCC's mandate to also include operations with combat elements - or so-called executive missions. Such a development could establish the MPCC as a single EU military operational headquarters (OHQ), replacing the current practice in which the Council determines a dedicated ad hoc OHQ for each operation, typically out of one of the following categories:
 * National 'parent headquarters', e.g. Northwood Headquarters as made available by the United Kingdom
 * Allied Command Operations (ACO) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), based on the Berlin Plus agreement
 * European Union Operations Centre (EU OPCEN), a limited ad hoc headquarters outside the EEAS