SUMMARY
The Cat A programme on “Optimising cross-border movement permission procedures in Europe” (CBMP) has been established to harmonize and simplify cross border movement procedures, addressing both regulatory and procedural issues, and to develop optimised solutions without additional administrative burden.
OBJECTIVES
The need to improve CBMP procedures in Europe aims at facilitating the smooth movement of EU military personnel and equipment through EU countries by harmonising procedures to shorten lead times. It was presented to the EDA Ministerial Steering Board on 29 May 2018, and accepted as a Cat A Programme, thereafter, endorsed as a Military Mobility opportunity.
Military deployment and sustainment are national responsibilities. This includes planning and execution, as well as the timely provision of assets, services and infrastructure. Due to the almost exclusively multi-national character of today’s CSDP operations, there is an increasing need for coordination and cooperation between participating Member States.
The EDA CBMP programme has been signed by 25 Member States 2019. Norway joined the programme in 2020 as the 26th participating country.
The CBMP programme serves as the umbrella programme for developing two Technical Arrangements (TAs) for border-crossing permissions: one in the surface and one in the air domain.
The CBMP TAs lay down administrative procedures, per transport mode, during crisis time, preparation for crisis, training and day-to-day business. Both TAs describe situations in which the impact for a host nation is reduced to an absolute minimum and required support is minimal or not required, which can lead to an annual permission of such a movement (pre-authorisation). Movement permissions laid down in the TAs include diplomatic clearance procedures. Both CBMP Surface TA and Air TA were signed by the respective 22 and 21 EU Member States in December 2021. Norway, asa contributing member of the programme, has also signed both TAs. The programme continues with the effort of monitoring the implementation of both TAs by the signatories.