EU Defence Ministers meet in Sofia

Szöveg: Ministry of Defence | 2018. május 5. 13:00

The Defence Ministers met in Sofia at the invitation of Ms Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Bulgarian Presidency in order to discuss the topical issues of the EU security and defence policy on May 4-5. The Hungarian delegation was led by Deputy Minister Mr. Tamás Vargha, Parliamentary State Secretary.

The informal meeting of the defence ministers started with the session of the European Defence Agency (EDA) Steering Board, where the report on the key tasks and future activities of the Agency was reviewed along with other main topics, such as the activity of EDA in research and development and the development of capabilities, as well as their effort made for the support of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).

The first working session of the two-day meeting focussed on the implementation issues of certain PESCO-projects, which – as a priority topic – dealt with the actions undertaken in the area of the movement of military forces across the European Union and beyond, and with future tasks. Besides these, a large emphasis was laid on the discussion of new PESCO-projects and objectives.

During the second working session, in the presence of NATO Secretary General Mr. Jens Stoltenberg and UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Mr. Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the ministers had a discussion about the perspectives of the crisis management of EU, NATO and the United Nations. They conducted a comprehensive debate on setting priorities in the strategic level cooperation between the three organisations, and about their common experiences learned in the crisis management and peacekeeping operations (PKO). The three organisations carry out their peacekeeping duties in coordination with each other in many regions (Mali, Iraq, Central African Republic, Western Balkans), and accordingly the exchange of experiences and the identification of the main cooperation areas is absolutely necessary.

The high-level meeting was successfully concluded, the discussion of these topics shall continue at expert level.