France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands have agreed to form the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF). This peacekeeping organization will have each country selecting and training police personnel who, on 30 days notice, can be sent off on a peacekeeping mission. Initially, the EGF will have 900 police ready for deployment. While previous efforts to establish peacekeeping forces have concentrated on readying military units for such service, experience has shown that, long term, police peacekeepers are more important, than troops, to eliminating the need for any peacekeepers in an area. The EGF eventually hopes to get other European nations to contribute to the force, and to eventually have several thousand EGF police qualified and ready for peacekeeping duty.