§ Mr. KeyTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what the official language of the European forces as defined in EU Council document SN 300/99 will be; [136298]
(2) if (a) the NATO flag or (b) the EU flag will be the official flag of the European forces as defined in EU Council document SN 300/99. [136299]
§ Mr. Spellar[holding answer 6 November 2000]: The European forces referred to in EU Council document SN 300/99 are the pool of capability needed to achieve the Headline Goal. The Headline Goal states that, by 2003, EU nations should be able to assemble, deploy rapidly and sustain up to 60,000 troops capable of undertaking the full range of crisis management tasks.
In the event of an EU-led or NATO-led operation being launched, each nation would decide when and how to commit their forces and each nation would be under their own national command and national flag.
National forces deployed on an EU-led operation in support of this goal will speak their own language. The issue of working language between national forces or in 224W Multinational Headquarters has not yet been addressed in the EU context. However, in NATO the working language for these purposes is English.