European Union Military Staff The European Union Military Staff ( EUMS ) is a department of the European Union ( EU ) , responsible for supervising operations within the realm of the Common Security and Defence Policy . It is directly attached to the private office of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy , currently Catherine Ashton , and is formally part of the European External Action Service . Role . In addition to providing strategic advice to the High Representative , the EUMS reports to the European Union Military Committee ( EUMC ) , an intergovernmental Council body made up of the Chiefs of Defence . Its main task is to perform " early warning , situation assessment and strategic planning for Petersberg tasks " and to implement CSDP missions ( 2001 / 80 / CFSP , annex article 2 ) such as EUFOR Althea and the other European Union Force missions in Chad / CAR and the DR Congo . The EUMS current consists of 200 + military and civilian personnel . The EUMS is located in the Kortenberg building , a short distance from the Berlaymont building , at Avenue de Kortenberg 150 , B - 1040 Brussels . Nearby is the Belgian Royal Military Academy building . EUMS is headed by a Director General , currently Lieutenant General Ton van Osch , who was previously the military representative of the Netherlands to both the EU and NATO . He succeeded Lieutenant General David Leakey ( 2007 - 2010 ) , who succeeded FR Lieutenant General Jean - Paul Perruche ( 2004 - 2007 ) . The Deputy Director General of the EUMS is Rear Admiral Bruce Williams from the UK . The EUMS does not directly control the EU military missions . In order to conduct an EU military crisis management operation , an Operational Headquarters ( OHQ ) is nominated by the appropriate EU Council decision . The OHQ directs the Force Headquarters or FHQ , also provided by a member country , which carries out the operation on the ground . If an EU operation is planned and conducted with recourse to NATO assets and capabilities , the OHQ is automatically the NATO Allied Command Operations ( ACO ) , formerly known as SHAPE , located in Mons , Belgium . In other cases , five national operational headquarters have been made available for use by the Union to fulfil the OHQ role . The French CPCO - Centre de Planification et de Conduite des Opérations - is situated at the à l ' État major des Armées , 231 boulevard St Germain , in Paris . Near Paris also is the French Mont Valérien command - and - control facility , where a French declared OHQ for EU operations is located . ( It is not clear if the French Mont Valerien facility has a national designation ) . The others are the British PJHQ at the Northwood Headquarters northwest of London , Germany ' s Armed Forces Operational Command near Potsdam , Centocelle in Rome and Larissa . The selected OHQ runs the operation at the strategic level . For example , Operation Artemis used Mont Valérien as its OHQ and EUFOR ' s DR Congo operation used Potsdam . The second option is to use NATO facilities , under ' Berlin plus ' arrangements , as was the case for mounting EUFOR Althea , for which SHAPE was used . The European Council decided in December 2004 to establish an additional OHQ option to those already in existence . The EU Military Staff ( EUMS ) was tasked to be ready to set up an OPSCEN capable of planning and conducting an operation , in particular where a joint civil / military response is required and where no national HQ is identified . The responsibility for assuring this capability lies with the OPSCEN / WKC ( Watching Keeping Capacity ) Branch of the EUMS Operations Directorate . Since 1 January 2007 , the EU Operation Centre is ready for activation by the Council for the conduct of autonomous operations . It is not a standing , fully manned Headquarters . The permanent facilities - premises and the necessary equipment - enable the Council to establish , at very short notice , a fully - fledged Operations Centre for a particular operation . In the case of a predominantly military operation , its staff would be able to start planning five days following Ministers ' decision . The staff of the EU Operations Centre , when so activated , would be composed of the permanent core team ( the four permanent staff ) , double - hatted personnel from the EUMS and other parts of the EEAS , as well as further reinforcements from Member States . The Ops Directorate Branch Chief OPSCEN / WKC would become the Chief of Staff of the activated Operations Centre . Operations supervised . The Military Staff has supervised a number of deployments since its establishment . The term " EUFOR " or " European Union Force " has been used to describe a number of military deployments , and has been used four times so far : in the Republic of Macedonia from March 2003 to December 2003 as EUFOR Concordia , in Bosnia from 2004 as EUFOR Althea , in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2006 ( EUFOR DR Congo ) , and in Chad ( EUFOR Tchad / RCA ) and the Central African Republic since 2007 . EUFOR is a temporary military " deployment " , not a permanent military " force " , and should not be confused with the Eurocorps , Eurofor or the Helsinki Headline Goal Force Catalogue , sometime misleadingly known as the ' European Rapid Reaction Force ' . The name ' EUFOR ' probably was patterned in imitation of NATO ' s IFOR , SFOR , and KFOR .