The Movement Coordination Centre Europe is a multinational military movement control centre located at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands. Its 28 member states are predominantly drawn from NATO and the European Union. The centre is staffed by 32 military and civilian personnel from the participating countries. The main purpose of the MCCE is coordinating and optimising the use of airlift, sealift and land movement assets of the armed forces of the member countries.
The genesis of the MCCE was in 1999 when the EU and NATO identified shortfalls in military capabilityas the world emerged from a cold war environment into a more dynamic expeditionary operational era. The two main findings that led to the founding of the MCCE were a shortage of both strategic airlift and sealift capabilities and the absence of a coordinating body to optimise strategic lift efficiency. The MCCE was officially established on 1 July 2007 as the merger of the earlier European Airlift Centre and the Sealift Co-ordination Centre. On this date, the initial 15 signatory countries became official members. The MCCE has since been through several cycles of expansion:
Mission
MCCE will aim to provide for its member nations the most effective coordination of multinational and multimodal strategic lift requirements and Air to Air Refueling against opportunities, in order to maximize the most efficient use of resources, thereby increasing confidence and visibility of strategic movement plans. MCCE has to be prepared to provide coordination support to EU and/or NATO operations, and to identify and highlight any potential to optimise Participants’ use of Air Transport, AAR, Sea Transport and Inland Surface Transport. This will include the provision of advice for the common usage of commercial charter capabilities, in order to avoid unnecessary competition for the same resources resulting in increased charter costs. MCCE also has to be prepared to provide coordination support to operations of organisations such as the UN in order to improve efficiency and to provide cost saving alternatives for member nations through identifying available assets, advertising these assets and then coordinating their use to the maximum extent possible, This coordination support will include requests for support to Peace Support Operations, Disaster Relief and Civil emergency crises.
