National Tasking. A related matter of possible concern was the right to national tasking; that is, the right of each country to assign its forces elsewhere. It was unclear what would have happened if the Netherlands had decided to pull the Xxxxx xx Xxxx out of Operation Atalanta to perform other urgent tasks. Such a scenario was not completely implausible at the time, given the ongoing violence in Yemen which was capturing the world’s attention. Indeed, the French patrol vessel l’Adroit was nationally retasked to assist in the evacuation of people from Yemen just after joining Operation Atalanta at the end of March.299 If the Netherlands had nationally retasked HNLMS Xxxxx xx Xxxx, Sweden would have had to take a political decision on the suitable course of action for the Swedish troops on board. It is possible that Sweden would have had an interest in joining such an undertaking, and perhaps it would have agreed to assist Dutch troops, but it would have been more problematic if Sweden did not want its forces to be associated with the new mission. However, it is likely that political consultations between the Netherlands and Sweden would have preceded any such situation. It was believed unlikely that the Netherlands would 295 Interviews 31 and 40. 296 Interview 29. 297 Interviews 24, 30 and 46. 298 Interviews 36 and 45. 299 Xxxx Xxxxxxx, “Some rest for l’Adroit during busy mission”, defenceWeb, 12 May 2015; and Bruxelles2, “Une centaine de ressortissants évacués du Yémen par la Royale”, 5 April 2015. FOI-R--4101--SE have made such a unilateral decision without first consulting Sweden, given the strengthened bilateral ties between Sweden and the Netherlands.300 More generally, there was some vagueness about under whose command the ship was when sailing to Djibouti, before joining Operation Atalanta. This was, however, resolved smoothly in talks. Training was undertaken as if the ship was already part of EUNAVFOR and, if any issues emerged, it was agreed that it would be addressed and dealt with.301 A related issue that emerged while sailing to the area of operations was that of force protection. Force protection is the measures taken to mitigate hostile action against personnel, facilities, equipment and operations. There was initially a level of vagueness about how the principle of force protection would apply to the shared platform. Were Swedish forces obliged to protect only themselves and their assets or also the Dutch ship as a whole? Would Dutch troops be required to...
