With Belgium only managing to cough up 1.3% of national output on defence spending and talks still underway on how NATO’s 2% target can be reached sooner, you may be wondering what contribution the country could make towards any future international peace force for Ukraine. According to military union ACMP the Belgian army will only be able to make a limited contribution to any European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. On Saturday, during European consultations Prime Minister Bart De Wever (Flemish nationalist N-VA) said that Belgium is ready to supply troops to such a peacekeeping force. ‘We will be ready, but to a very limited extent,’ military sources insisted.
‘It would seem stupid to me if we would not participate.’ On Saturday Prime Minister De Wever made it clear at the European summit of 25 heads of state and government that Belgium would be ready to join the military commitment if peacekeeping forces were to be sent to Ukraine in future.
The government plans to invest heavily in the armed forces. But the cuts of past decades mean that the defence department today does not have the personnel, resources and equipment to allow a large-scale deployment.
'300 military personnel'
‘We will be ready, but to a very limited extent,’ says Yves Huwart, president of the military ACMP union. ‘The capacity we have at our disposal that today can be labelled operational is relatively limited.’
According to the union, Belgium can send about 300 military personnel ‘at most’. Deploying a frigate is possible, but only ‘very temporarily, for a few months’. As part of the air contribution, Belgium could provide air transport aircraft and 4 F-16 fighter jets to help patrol the airspace.
Not yet on the cards
The possibility of peacekeeping forces being deployed to Ukraine in the immediate future seems unlikely. This would require a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia. The Belgian prime minister stressed that the conditions for a commitment of European and Belgian troops were far from being reached today. Moreover, Russia opposes the idea of an international peacekeeping force.
In the army, nobody is nervous about a possible deployment of Belgian soldiers. ‘I notice greater concern about the impending pension reforms than about whether or not Belgian soldiers will be deployed,’ Mr Huwart noted.