Meeting of the V4 Training and Education Experts

At Hungarian initiative, the now-traditional conference – which is organised twice a year by the Presidency-in-office ­ was complemented with the field of education besides that of training. Brig.-Gen. Zoltán Apáti, the Chief of the HDF General Staff Training and Education Directorate welcomed the participants of the conference. In his opening speech he emphasized the importance of the Visegrád cooperation, and the significance of unified standpoints and actions in the military domain as well. He pointed out that the motto of the Hungarian Presidency – V4 Connects" – refers to the common past of the region, and the efforts to find joint solutions to the challenges facing the V4 community.

The participants gained a summary overview of the work done under our presidency. They discussed the exercises, and training events in the joint organisation of the V4 countries planned from 2018-2022.

The participants reviewed the tasks to be undertaken concerning the V4 Individual Training Catalogue currently under preparation. It is worth mentioning that Hungary has taken a leading role in the preparation of the catalogue. In what follows they specified the joint training events of the V4 EU Battle Group for 2019. With regard to the field of education the representatives of the V4 countries provided information on their own military education and training system, including inter alia the officer, NCO and superior training, the distance education and the language training.

While seeking for further opportunities of co-operation – in a round-table discussion – the parties held a debate on how each of them applies the NATO Individual Training, Education and Quality Assurance (QA) Directive in their own national system, and explored the possibilities of creating a joint V4 distance education platform. Due to the absence of the representative of the Czech leading nation in logistics, the Hungarian logistics expert reported on the training fields of the cooperation of the V4 countries in logistics, highlighting the activities of the Prague-based Multinational Logistics Co-ordination Centre in the field of professional trainings.