On Monday, the EU approved the creation of the Military Planning Conduct and Capability (MPCC) facility with three new command centers in Mali, the Central African Republic, and Somalia.
The outfits will allegedly not involve the use of force, except in measures of self-defense. The MPCC will have no bearing on the EU’s Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean, which is used to thwart smugglers, or Operation Atalanta, which focuses on anti-piracy forces from its post on the Horn of Africa.
Bridget Johnson, a terrorism fellow for the Salomon Center, a Northbrook, Illinois-based think tank, reported Monday that, since 2013, the Office of Naval Intelligence data indicates that Somalian pirates are all but obsolete.
— Bridget Johnson (@Bridget_PJM) March 6, 2017
In response to allegations that the move constituted the mobilization of a European army, EU foreign affairs minister Federica Mogherini said, "It’s not a European Army. I know this is a label going around. It is a more effective way of handling our military work." She claimed that the bloc does not intend to boot out NATO as the region’s primary defense force.
With the UK voting its way out of the EU with Brexit, the bloc is coalescing its own European nationalism. Mogherini asserted that a "certain pride" emanated from EU officials with respect to the new plan. The EU proposal earned "unanimous" support, she added. Following Brexit, calls for a common defense headquarters exclusively for the EU have picked up steam. In September 2016, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker reignited the call for a common defense center.
