Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 68: To ask the Minister for Defence the details of the concept of the European military Erasmus initiative contained in a recent General Affairs and External Relations Council declaration; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17913/09]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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The proposal to launch a European Military young officers exchange scheme, modelled on Erasmus, was one of the major initiatives of the French EU Presidency and was formally adopted by the Council of the European Union in November 2008. The European Military Erasmus initiative seeks to establish a military exchange programme for European military officers undertaking their initial training and education. It would enable young officers to complete some of their initial training in another Member State.

This will be a voluntary initiative, with participating Member State academies bilaterally working out agreements. Ireland supports the initiative and feels that the concept of shared training could be of particular benefit to smaller countries. It should be noted, however, that Ireland has already developed a flexible and effective working relationship between the Defence Forces and foreign military academies, which accommodates requirements for officer and non commissioned officer (NCO) education and training. The primary objective of the Military Erasmus is to enhance the capacity of European Armies to work together and to reinforce the potential for co-operation and to strengthen their interoperability to conduct increasingly complex multinational crisis management and peace support operations.

In order to advance this initiative, Member States have established an Implementation Working Group working under the aegis of European Security and Defence College (ESDC) Executive Academic Council. To date there have been two meetings of the Implementation Working Group and the Defence Forces have been represented at both. The purpose of the Implementation Working Group is to agree on a number of practical matters for encouraging and facilitating exchanges between their national training colleges, with assistance from the European Security and Defence College. The measures will relate to cooperation between military universities, exchanges during basic military training and the provision of a forum for specialised military training and education. These measures will be implemented at both European and national level and based on existing bilateral and multilateral exchanges.

There are also plans to develop Distance Learning (DL) and a common module on ESDP will be provided as standard in the curriculum. An important aspect of the initiative from Ireland's perspective is that it is voluntary and that we are under no obligation to deliver a quota of courses. Secretary General/High Representative Javier Solana is preparing a report for Council on progress on the implementation of this initiative, which will be presented to Defence Ministers at the GAERC on the 18th May 2009.