Croatian officials attend FAC in defence and foreign affairs ministers session
The State Secretary for European Affairs Andrea Metelko-Zgombić and the Assistant Minister for Defence Policy Petar Mihatov attended the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in the format of defence and foreign ministers, held in Luxembourg on 25 June 2018.
The first session discussed the current status of implementation of the EU’s Global Strategy for Security and Defence, with the emphasis on the ongoing defence initiatives such as PESCO, the European Defence Fund, military mobility, partnerships in the domains of security and defence policy and hybrid threats.
The ministers adopted the Decision of the FAC on the common governance rules for PESCO projects, setting out the modality for reporting to the Council (on an annual basis, through PESCO Secretariat), and the recommendations pertain to individual project rules refer to the status and the role of the member nations, and the elements such as entry or departure from the project, the decision making modality, procurement strategy etc).
The meeting of the Council chaired by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini comprised the sessions focussed on the defence and security-related EU initiatives and the co-operation between EU and NATO.
The Croatian representatives welcomed the overall progress achieved in the implementation of the initiated EU defence initiatives, particularly in PESCO (Croatia is taking part in five projects, pursuant to the earlier decisions) and the stated intention for funding of the participates in the implementation of 5 PESCO projects in accordance with the already adopted decisions) and stated the EU’s intention to fund these initiatives. They emphasised the projects related to military mobility and continued work on the European Defence Fund aimed at opening it to the small and medium-sized enterprise in defence industry.