(B2) It was ultimately General Michiel van der Laan who was chosen on Wednesday (May 18) to succeed Vice-Admiral Hervé Bléjean as Director General of the EU General Staff. Several candidates were in the running. Transfer of power planned for June 2023.
(photo: Council of the EU November 2019 / Archives B2)
The Director of the EU General Staff (EUMS) is elected by his peers, the chiefs of staff of the 26 EU Member States participating in the CSDP (except Denmark). Usually a year in advance. The tradition was respected.
Since July 2019, Michiel van der Laan has been the head of the Dutch military representation to NATO and the EU in Brussels.
Its main task will be to support the concrete implementation of the EU's future rapid reaction capacity and the transformation of the General Staff into a real EU military HQ.
Tankman deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina
Graduating from the Royal Military Academy of Breda in 1987, Michiel joined the 103rd Reconnaissance Battalion in Seedorf, Germany. From October 2002 to August 2005, he took command of the 11th tank battalion. It is within this framework that it was deployed in 2003 in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the NATO stabilization force (SFOR), as commander of the task force of the 11th mechanized battalion.
At the headquarters
He will then be promoted to colonel in June 2006, becoming head of the bconcept manager at the defense staff, then from March 2008 to May 2009, personal chief of staff to the army commander. But, like most Dutch officers, most of his external experience was on the NATO side.
At ISAF, in Afghanistan.
In 2009, promoted to general, he joined Afghanistan as director of stability within the HQ of the regional command South of the NATO Stabilization Force (ISAF). He is in particular responsible for ISAF relations with non-military organizations (NB: the Dutch were largely present in the south of the country, in Uruzgan). On his return in December 2009, van der Laan took command of the 13th mechanized brigade in Oirschot (± 3000 soldiers). In 2011, he assumed command of one of the EU battle groups (battle group).
A strong Euro-Atlantic experience
In January 2013, promoted to major general, van der Laan became deputy head of the 1st German-Dutch Corps. HAS In this capacity, he is responsible for the preparations of the very high level of readiness force 2015 (VJTF15). He also commanded NATO land forces during the exercise Trident Juncture in Norway in 2018 (the Alliance's largest exercise) and command of the Land Component of the Response Force (NRF) in 2019. In the meantime, from 2014 to 2016, he was the Director of Operations at the Dutch Ministry of Defense.
Comment: a post that is gaining depth with the Dutch in ambush
Five candidate countries
In addition to the Netherlands, four other countries, mainly from the South (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain), had applied for the position of chief of staff. A sign of the renewed interest in this position which is gaining depth as the staff increases in power: with the role of operation command for the military missions of the PSDC, its current role in coordinating military supplies for Ukraine (Clearing House Cell) and the one to come for the EU's rapid reaction capacity.
A strong Dutch presence
We can notice the slow rise of Queen Beatrix's citizens in the political-military structures of the EU - Delphine Pronk is the president of the COPS, the political and security committee of the EU, while Joanneke Balfoort is the director of security and defense policy of the EEAS - as well as of NATO - it is a Dutchman Rob Bauer who occupies the position of president of the military committee.
A subtle balance within the EU
This appointment also reveals, and above all, a clever balance. Within European political-military structures, the main civil and military CSDP positions are held by Spaniards, Italians and French. The presence of an Austrian on the military committee also stems from this concern for rebalancing.
Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).
