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:
“I should think the American admiration of five-minute tourists has done more to kill the sacredness of old European beauty and aspiration than multitudes of bombs would have done.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.”
—Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)