Chief of Defence Holds Talks in Udine
Szöveg: Defence Staff | 2013. július 23. 10:59Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő, the Chief of the Defence Staff participated in a meeting held at Udine, Italy between July 17–18, where he conducted talks on regional security issues and the details of military cooperation with Chiefs of Defence from Austria, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia within the Defence Cooperation Initiative (DECI).
Last summer the military leaderships of Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia launched the Defence Cooperation Initiative (DECI) as a forum for regular consultations about regional security issues, with a view to enabling more effective defence cooperation among the countries involved through the most rational use of available financial resources.
The meeting was preceded by a more than one-year preparation. During the talks, the Chiefs of Defence from the participating nations were informed about the results of cooperation and looked at the individual nations’ available means of making contributions to strengthen the common security and defence policy. The pooling and sharing of military capabilities is an important part of the ongoing cooperation, so the participants of the meeting also discussed issues related to the rational use of available military capabilities and joint engagement in operations.
The representatives of the participating countries all agreed that the goals of DECI are stimulating and may ensure continuous development for all members. They issued a joint declaration to reaffirm their commitment to these goals.
Furthermore, the Chiefs of Defence prepared a draft letter of intent for the informal defence ministerial meeting to be held in Vilnius in early September. Based on this, in the first half of 2017 they would be able to set up another joint EU Battle Group, to be drawn from the Hungarian–Italian–Slovenian Multinational Land Force (MLF).
