Cyber Defence Must Become a Part of Collective Defence

Tamás Vargha told Hungarian News Agency MTI that today’s cyber attacks are not merely “emerging" but rather real and existing threats. As he said, at the meeting he himself argued for the position that the cyber defence must be integrated into NATO’s general collective defence activities.

On the first day, the Ministers also discussed the NATO defence capabilities. In particular, they concluded that adequate capacities must be maintained despite the fact that the defence budgets have been reduced since 2008 and austerity measures have been taken.

In the spirit of the concept of “Smart Defence", it is convenient for several member states to cooperate in generating certain capabilities. A good example of this is the three C–17 transport aircraft of the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) initiative, which is a consortium of 12 nations. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will visit Pápa in early July, Tamás Vargha reasserted, after holding a short discussion with Mr. Rasmussen on this issue during the day.

As for the size of defence budgets, the participants of the session on Tuesday all agreed that the level must be maintained at least, the Hungarian State Secretary said, noting that Hungary undertook to maintain the level of its defence budget in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and to increase it from 2016 on. He added that there will be a HUF 7 billion expansion this year, in comparison with the benchmark, the 2012 defence budget.

At the meeting, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that Washington, whose defence spending is regularly much higher than that of other allies, is now forced to reduce its defence spending, and would like to see other NATO members sharing more burden.

On Tuesday, at the NATO HQ Tamás Vargha met the Defence Ministers of the three other Visegrád countries, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He told MTI that the V4 group is increasingly considered as a partner both in NATO and in the EU, so the group is playing an increasingly important role. Poland, which has held the presidency in the last one year, is going to hand over it to Hungary in early July.

At the meeting, State Secretary Vargha thanked Poland for the presidency. He pointed out that in the future, the Visegrád group will have to carry out important tasks related to the formulation of common standpoints and the development of joint capabilities. The V4s intend to set up a joint battle group in 2016, the State Secretary reasserted the previously expressed intent.

On Wednesday, June 5, the second day of their meeting, the NATO Defence Ministers are focusing on Afghanistan among other topics.

Photo: nato.int