DECI Member Countries Hold Discussions in Croatia

In the initial phase of the cooperation, DECI was associated with the Multinational Land Force (MLF) which comprises Hungary, Slovenia and Italy together with two other countries, Austria and Croatia with observer status at the time. Afterwards, in June 2012 the Chiefs of Defence of these five countries issued a declaration on the launch of the initiative.

The participants of the meeting discussed several important topics, among them the Framework Nation Concept which started on Germany’s initiative and was approved by the Ministers of Defence as a NATO concept on June 3, 2014. Building on this cooperation, acting on the proposal of Italy as a lead nation, they looked into the possibility of establishing a joint framework nation group of DECI countries with the participation of Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia and Albania.

The next topic of discussion was the setting up of an EU Battle Group, the plans for which were announced by Italy in the spring of 2013, with the EU Battle Group to be placed on stand-by in the first half of 2017. Earlier, on June 18, 2013 the Chiefs of Defence of DECI countries stated in a memorandum of understanding that they will take part in the establishment of an Italy-led EU Battle Group to which Hungary has also made contributions.

Our relations with the DECI countries have already produced some well-worked out and concrete results, such as the formation of an MLF unit, an Italian–Hungarian framework agreement on training and a Hungarian–Slovenian bilateral agreement on protecting Slovenian airspace. We have jointly achieved several successes in the reform of the armed forces and our operational deployments, and in the future, one of our most important common goals is the participation in the EU Battle Group in 2017.

Photo: Defence Staff