Deputy Defence Minister attended EU Defence Ministerial

The discussion on the meeting was on the further strengthening and development of the EU common foreign and security policy in a constantly changing environment.

During the first part of the meeting, the focus was on the southern EU neighbourhood, namely the security and political situation in Libya, the Sahel and beyond.

In addition, the ministers discussed the EU missions and operations. Special attention was focused on operations and mission on the Horn of Africa – EU NAVFOR Atalanta, where the Republic of Croatia also participate, EUTM Somalia – training mission of building military capabilities of Somali Security Forces and EUCAP Nestor-new EU mission, which aims to strengthen and build maritime capabilities of Somalia, Djibouti, Seychelles, Kenya and Tanzania. These three missions have been fully complementary and form part of a comprehensive strategy of the European Union to combat piracy. In addition to the above, ministers also discussed the future of the operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

At the final part of the meeting, the ministers in the presence of representatives of the European Defence Agency (EDA) and the European Commission discussed the multinational collaboration to fill critical gaps through pooling & sharing defence initiative and through long-term approach to this initiative, and about the systematic approach to filling EU battle groups and overcoming limiting factors for their use.
On the first day of her stay in the Republic of Cyprus, the Deputy Defence Minister Višnja Tafra met the members of the Croatian Armed Forces participating in the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP).