Air Surveillance Is the Basis of Our Sovereignty

Col. (Eng.) József Szûcs, the Commanding Officer of the unit received the Minister and showed him around the facility to introduce him to the CRC workstations while informing him about the structure and tasks of the unit as well as the fulfillment of its commitments as a NATO Command Force.

The Defence Minister held a press conference in the court of the installation where he answered the journalists’ questions. Dr. Csaba Hende stressed that the compound – which had been built in the 1930s – still ranks among the key installations of the Hungarian Defence Forces. Being integrated into the NATO Integrated Air Defence System (NATINADS), the CRC carries out 24/7 air surveillance and exercises control over the ground based air defence (GBAD) units while protecting the sovereignty of Hungary’s airspace, the Minister said. He pointed out that technological development and upgrade are going to play a key role in this field of the military as well. “When I first visited the unit in the early ‘90s, the soldiers on duty were tracking the aircraft by mirror handwriting. Enormous changes have taken place since, which is very welcome indeed, but we need to make further progress", the Minister said.

Answering a journalist’s question about the establishment of a third 3D radar station, the minister said this problem has been around since 1999. Two stations had been set up earlier in Békéscsaba and Bánkút without causing any problems, but the third one met with resistance from the locals. “We know that the most ideal site for the third radar station would have been the Zengõ Hill, and we must deal with this situation as soon as possible, so we are going to choose a new site for the station", the Minister said, adding that having given up the most ideal location the MoD will have to be operating two more gap-filling radar companies in addition to the radar station at a cost of nearly HUF 10 billion. “This day has convinced me that installing state-of-the-art systems is indispensable for executing the tasks of air surveillance because the citizens of Hungary would be left unprotected without these items of equipment", the Defence Minister added.

In answer to another journalist’s question Dr. Csaba Hende stated that together with 28 NATO member countries and 18 partner and contact nations, Hungary had undertaken a role in ISAF, Afghanistan and joined the ongoing reconstruction in the country at the request of the UN under its mandate. “Our definite objective is to eliminate the strongholds of terrorists. We intervened in Afghanistan together, so we intend to decide about the further steps to be taken together with our allies", the Minister said.

In what followed, Dr. Csaba Hende received some questions on general military issues. Answering these he said that due to the erroneous decisions made by the previous government the new MoD leadership now has a very difficult job, as it currently possesses neither financial nor staff resources in reserve. “The recent flooding was the first occasion when we realized this state of affairs", the Minister said. In relation to the manpower reserves he noted that the 2004 termination of the conscription in Hungary was not succeeded by the establishment of a volunteer reserve system.

“It is the reorganization of the Reserve that we have to start with in building the system. Nearly 15,000 well-trained servicemen have been inactivated over the last six years without anyone asking them if they were willing to undertake reservists service", the Minister pointed out. “Therefore, stemming this tide must be our top priority so that we can take further steps. One thing is for sure, however. We have highly trained career personnel with two or three degrees and proficiency in foreign languages. There is a growing interest in military education. This year there were twenty times more applications for the Zrínyi Miklós National Defence University than places. We have a solid basis in quality on which we can build", Defence Minister Dr. Csaba Hende said.

Text: Ferenc Demeter
Photo: László Tóth, Mária Krasznai-Nehrebeczky