At present, military transportation and sustainment is considered to be a national responsibility. This includes planning and execution as well as timely provision of assets, services and infrastructure. Due to the almost exclusive multi-national character of today’s CSDP operations, there is an increasing need for coordination and cooperation between Member States to avoid unnecessary duplications and associated inefficiencies. Depending on circumstances, in many cases, best economic practice would be to use Multimodal Transport Hubs that can manage a range of transport means. A smooth passage through borders from the sending nation to the hub is a fundamental requisite for the hub system itself to be used by Member States.
To this end, the EDA launched a work stream and convened a Project Team Movement and Transport (PT M&T) under IDT Deploy to cope with the demand of Member States in establishing an EU Multimodal Transport Hub system in Europe. The EDA’s work in Europe is complementary to the NATO worldwide hub approach.
A Project Team Movement and Transport with subject matter experts from Member States (and EUMS, EATC, AMSCC, MCCE, etc. as observers) has been established. The Project Arrangement was signed in 2017 by 13 Member States and a Technical Agreement on surface movement, border crossing and transiting is expected to be signed by mid-2018. EDA’s aim is to provide contributing Member States with a platform for discussion/ improvement of the overarching and flexible legal framework to support the development of EU Multimodal Transport Hub system.