European Air Group was established in 1995 to build on close collaboration between the British and French air forces in the first Gulf War and the subsequent Balkans operations. The European Air Group consists today of 7 member nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom) working together to stimulate change and collectively to enhance the tactical capabilities of the Group’s air forces through better cooperation.
The EAG established the European Airlift Coordination Centre (EACC) at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands on 1 September 2001. The EACC later became the European Airlift Centre and was joined at Eindhoven by a sealift coordination centre. On 1 July 2007 the two centres merged fully to become the Movement Coordination Centre Europe, by which time 15 nations, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom, were part of the organisation.
Since 1. July 2010 the European Air Transport Command is operational at Eindhoven Airport. The EACC members France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany have dedicate all military cargo aircraft to the EATC especially the existing fleet of Transall C-160 and C-130 Hercules.
Famous quotes containing the words european, air and/or group:
“Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
“Hamlet. The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.
Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“My routines come out of total unhappiness. My audiences are my group therapy.”
—Joan Rivers (b. 1935)