General Charles-Henri Delcour

General Charles-Henri Delcour was born in Brussel in 1948 and he joined the Royal Military Academy with the 122nd polytechnic class. He is married and his two sons have already entered professional life.

He started his military career as a platoon leader and subsequently passed through each operational command level from squadron up to army corps level (Eurocorps) to include regiment and brigade.

Alternately with commands he had postings in the national staff where he started with equipment management and shifted afterward to global planning including budget, procurement programmes and changes in units configuration. When he promoted to Major General he took over the Material Division of the General Staff. During 2001 he simultaneously led the working group "Strategy" that was tasked to design the strategy directorate in the new joint general staff organisation. When the latter was activated in 2002, he was posted to the Material Directorate.

Next to participating to various NATO and European groups, his international experience started with the one year Long Armour Infantry Course at the Armour School in Bovington (UK) and also includes the command of the Belgian Forces in Germany as well as the command of Eurocorps in Strasbourg from 2005-2007 in a period when Eurocorps secured its NRF (NATO Response Force) certification. Since October 2007 he is the Belgian representative to the Military Committee of the European Union.

Beyond the preparation and field inspection of units for former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, he filled the position of Chief of Staff of the ISAF Headquarters as a major-general from August 2004 to February 2005. The latter was a NATO combined joint HQ with 31 participating Nations in charge of both land and air operations in Afghanistan. The Eurocorps where he was then Chief of Staff was indeed contributing the core of ISAF.

Next to Belgian medals such as Grand Officier de l'Ordre de la Couronne and Commandeur de l'Ordre de Léopold, he also holds the following foreign medals : Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite (France),  Commandeur dans l'Ordre Grand Ducal de la Couronne de Chêne (Luxemburg), Gran Cruz del Mérito Militar con distintivo blanco (Spain), Große Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Germany), Officier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur (France).

In June 2008 he was appointed Aide de Camp to the King.

On 2 April 2009 he was promoted to the rank of General and he was appointed as Chief of Defence.