News

On March 18-22 military personnel of King Mindaugas Motorised Infantry Battalion assigned to the European Union Battlegroup (EUBG) attend attending evaluation exercise in Pabradė Training Area Video report

In the second semester of 2013 from July 1 approximately 120 members of King Mindaugas Battalion will conduct standby in a high-readiness unit of the EU – the EU Battlegroup formed together with military personnel of the UK, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden. Lithuania will also post staff officers to the headquarters of the UK-led EU BG, and Colonel Vaidotas Malinionis (Lithuanian Armed Forces) will serve as deputy chief of the joint headquarters.
 
“The objective of this exercise is to evaluate readiness of our troops and commanders for completion of designated tasks. It is an important phase because our company is preparing for the main exercise of the entire Battlegroup which will involve several thousands of troops”, Commander of the Lithuanian Land Force Major General Almantas Leika said after the exercise. General expressed his satisfaction with the results of the exercise and paralleled the EU BG with fire fighters ready to put out fires any minute.

The national training period for standby will be followed by a joint certification exercise conducted with other countries’ representatives in the United Kingdom this May.

During the standby period Lithuanian military personnel assigned to the EU BG will maintain high readiness in their permanent deployment site in Lithuania and, in case of activation, the EU BG will be ready to deploy into the operation theatre within 5-10 days and will be sustainable for 30-120 days.

Lithuanian military will conduct standby in the EU BG during Lithuania’s EU Presidency. One of Lithuania’s priorities for the EU Presidency period is strengthening the Common Security and Defence Policy through developing multinational rapid crisis response capabilities – the EU Battlegroups – and through supporting involvement of the European Union in multinational operations.

The EU Battlegroups are multinational rapid response capabilities of the European Union allowing the EU to respond speedily to emerging crises. Similarly to NATO’s Response Force, the EU BGs are made up of military units assigned by the EU member states for six-month standbys.

The EU BGs are rapidly deployable and multinationally formed joint forces maintaining high readiness. One EU Battlegroup is approximately 2 thousand-strong.

The European Union launched the first Battlegroup in 2005. Two BGs have been deployed every six months since 2007 which allows completing two operations at the same time.

This is not first standby of Lithuania in a EU BG. In the first half of 2010 Lithuania participated in the joint EU Battlegroup of Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia. Water Purification Unit of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytenis General Support Logistics Battalion was assigned to the Dutch-German-Finnish-Austrian-Lithuanian EU Battlegroup in the first half of 2011. Lithuanian military are expected to serve in the Nordic Battlegroup (NBG) led by Sweden in early 2015.