Minister of Defence Dr. István Simicskó is heading the Hungarian delegation at a two-day Meeting of NATO Ministers of Defence that started on Tuesday, 14 June in Brussels.

The ministerial meeting is taking place one day after the Hungarian National Assembly ratified, by unanimous voting, the Protocol on the Accession of Montenegro to NATO. With this, after Iceland and Slovenia, Hungary has become the third member state to ratify the accession accord of the Western Balkan country’s joining the Alliance.

The present one is the first-ever defence ministerial meeting in NATO’s history at which the Montenegrin Minister of Defence is participating as an observer or “invitee”, so instead of 28, there are already 29 ministers sitting around the negotiating table.

On the margins of the NATO meeting, the Defence Ministers of the Visegrád Cooperation held a separate session with the Baltic allies, i.e. their Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts. Due to the crisis in Ukraine, the security situation of the eastern NATO member states has significantly deteriorated. In this situation, on account of their similar historical fate and experiences, the V4 countries attach outstanding importance to allied solidarity, and wish to make practical contributions to guaranteeing the security of the three allies in the Baltic region.

Speaking about the results of the talks, Dr. István Simicskó said that the Visegrád countries had reached an agreement on declaring a company-sized military force to NATO for deployment in the Baltic countries in 2017. The Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian detachments will deploy on a rotational basis every three months, and hold combined training events together with the designated military units of the Baltic allies.

Mr. Simicskó also attended the session of a working group led by Germany as the framework nation, which focuses on capability building and brings together 16 NATO member countries in order to coordinate the development of their military capabilities. Their close cooperation facilitates enhanced effectiveness in attaining the Force Goals approved by NATO.

The Hungarian minister of defence emphasized that the Hungarian Defence Forces are going to develop their capabilities in many fields by cooperating with the militaries of the Visegrád Four countries, i.e. the armed forces of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The plans include holding collective training events and multinational exercises as well, in the interest of increasing the interoperability of the participating military units.

(Ministry of Defence)