General Mollard, you took over your command last September. How would you describe EATC after more than six months in office?
Moving in the right direction!
EATC has developed over the past years an unbeatable multinational expertise in air mobility. This, together with our strength of pooling and sharing capabilities and capacities, is of immediate, visible and obvious benefit of our member nations and the air mobility community. At the end of the day, EATC optimises and increases the capabilities and capacities at the disposal of the nations, offering successful 24/7 worldwide missions and relinquishing costly air transport solutions.
And let’s not forget, the success that EATC has experienced in its 14 years of existence was not only due to its well-thought business model, but also thanks a multinational team of experts gathering at our Eindhoven headquarters and excelling through their commitment and diversity.
Here, I have to pay tribute to my predecessors and to their teams for all they have achieved in the past years. Today we can build up on their legacy and move forward in the direction they indicated to us.
Will EATC “move beyond this direction”?
Of course! In today’s tense times with major conflicts, a multinational military organization like EATC must of course deliver immediate additional power and added value but it must also adapt and develop. The more, if we look at the risk of evolving towards conflicts whose intensity would far exceed that of the conflicts of recent decades.
EATC cannot just rest on its laurels. This is why one of my priorities is to define the role that EATC might have to play in future, when for instance our nations are requested to rapidly deploy troops. We for sure then need to interact directly with NATO and, maybe in a more limited way, with the EU. Thus my next step will be to engage talks with NATO HQs and the EUMS. I will make sure EATC is prepared for the future.