Last modified: 2015-04-09 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/eu^gefor.gif)
Flag of the European Gendarmerie Force - Image by Zoltán Horváth, 25 June 2014
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The European Gendarmerie Force (EUROGENDFOR or EGF; official website; Wikipedia) was launched by an agreement in 2006 between five member states of the European Union: France, Italy, the Netherlands,Portugal and Spain. Romania subsequently joined in 2009, and Poland was invited to join in 2011. Its purpose is the creation of a European intervention force with militarised police functions and specialise in crisis management, designed after the French Gendarmerie, the Spanish Guardia Civil, and the Italian Carabinieri and its Multinational Specialized Units (M.S.U.). Its status is enshrined in the Treaty of Velsen of 18 October 2007. The EGF is based in Vicenza, in northeastern Italy, and has a core of 800 to 900 members ready to deploy within 30 days.
The French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie first proposed this force on September 2003; she and the Italian Defense Minister Antonio
Martino presented it at the Meeting of European Union Defense Ministers, on October 2003. The implentation agreement was finally signed by defence ministers of the five countries on September 17, 2004 in Noordwijk, Netherlands. On 23 January 2006, the EGF was officially inaugurated during a military ceremony in the Gen. Chinotto barracks in Vicenza.
The EGF was declared fully operational on 20 July 2006, following the
High Level Interministerial meeting in Madrid, Spain, and its second
successful Command Post exercise (CPX), which took place between 19Ð28
April 2006. The first CPX was held at the National Gendarmerie
Training Center in Saint Astier, France, in June 2005.
Esteban Rivera, 25 June 2014
The flag of the European Gendarmerie Force (photo) is blue with the logo in the middle.
Esteban Rivera, 25 June 2014
