(WARSAW) - EU and NATO member Poland is gearing up to become a full fledged member of the Eurocorps military contingent, a spokesman for Poland's general staff said Wednesday.

"Poland's chief of staff General Franciszek Gagor told Eurocorps' Spanish commander, Lieutenant-General Pedro Pitarch, that the Polish army was interested in this project and will be ready on time," spokesman Colonel Sylwester Michalski told AFP.

"All the decisions regarding this project depend on the decisions of politicians," he said.

Poland, a member of NATO since 1999 and the European Union since 2004, currently holds "contributor-nation" status in Eurocorps.

But Warsaw hopes to join the corps' five key player "framework" nations -- Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain.

Rooted in a 1992 agreement between France and Germany, Eurocorps is part of NATO's collective defence forces and is focused on crisis management, humanitarian assistance, rescue and stabilisation missions and peacekeeping.

It has been involved in several key international missions over the past decade, including the NATO-led SFOR mission in the Balkans and the KFOR deployment in Kosovo.

From August 2004 to February 2005, Eurocorps commanded ISAF -- the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force -- in Afghanistan.

According to Michalski, France and Germany raised the possibility of Poland becoming a Eurocorps framework member in 2006.

"From 2009, Poland will increase the number of officers delegated to Eurocorps headquarters (Strasbourg, France) from three to 15. A Polish officer will be named deputy chief of staff," he said.

Polish troops already take part in Eurocorps exercises.

Eurocorps can draw on a approximate total force of 60,000 soldiers from its members.

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