Regional defence cooperation: the V4 EU Battlegroup

The paper concentrates on the process of creating a new V4 EU Battlegroup to be in stand-by for rapid deployment in the first half of 2016 which aims to lead to an even closer regional defence cooperation between the V4 countries and probably to the establishment of permanent structures in the near future. Up until now, the defence cooperation among these countries has been under the expectations and the declared ambitions of their governments. This initiative can be seen as the first step to realise these goals. The aim of the paper is firstly to explain the reasons of the lower level of cooperation in this field (i.e. different level of defence spending, lack of real political will, lack of common interest and mutual trust, different perception of the security environment) so far, secondly to analyse the process leading to the establishment of this V4 EU BG, and last but not least the debates and questions concerning the future of the EU battlegroup concept (“Use it or lose it?”). The usability of these rapid reaction instruments, the EU BGs has been discussed since years.