Ministry of Defense An MB all-terrain vehicle of the 13 Light Brigade from Oirschot
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 12:28
As of today, all combat brigades of the Dutch army are under German command. This afternoon the 13 Light Brigade from Oirschot will be integrated into the German command structure. The Netherlands will continue to decide for itself where the Dutch military will be deployed.
At 5 pm this afternoon there will be a ceremony in Veitshöchheim in Bavaria, where the unit flag of the brigade from Oirschot will be symbolically handed over in the presence of German and Dutch detachments and the Ministers of Defense of both countries.
The integration of the 13 Light Brigade is the final piece of a process that started years ago. In 2014, the Airmobile Brigade from Schaarsbergen already came under German command, and two years later the same happened with the 43 Mechanized Brigade from Havelte. Only the Commando Corps and support units such as the engineers, medical troops and logistics remain outside the integration.
‘Together we can do more’
The Netherlands and Germany have been working together since 1995. Since then, the First German-Dutch Army Corps has been formed, a rapidly deployable NATO unit, air defense units have been merged and both countries have been coordinating their contributions to NATO and international missions under the banner of ‘together we can do more’.
The merger has advantages for both countries. The Netherlands has had no tanks of its own since 2011. Germany does, so that Dutch soldiers can also train with it. Germany is happy with the Dutch brigades because it has difficulty filling its own divisions. The approximately eight thousand Dutch soldiers partly solve that problem. The Netherlands and Germany can now deploy a total of about 50,000 military personnel, divided over three divisions.
Supreme authority in the Dutch government
With the integration of the 13 Light Brigade, cooperation becomes even easier. The Ministry of Defense emphasizes that the decision on the deployment of Dutch military personnel remains in the hands of the Netherlands. The supreme authority over the Dutch armed forces remains with the Dutch government, which wants to be able to deploy Dutch units “independantly from high to low level”, Defense Minister Ollongren wrote in a letter to Parliament in February.
There is currently intensive cooperation in military aid to Ukraine. The Netherlands and Germany together donate equipment such as armored howitzers and jointly provide training to Ukrainian soldiers.
Prior to the flag ceremony this afternoon, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren and her German colleague Boris Pistorius sign a ‘Technical Agreement’, in which the agreements on the integration of the 13 Light Brigade are laid down.
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