Minister Buljević attends CEDC meeting

The first part of the meeting, attended by defence ministers of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia too, featured the exchange of the views on the possibilities of joint response to the challenges of the migrant crisis along the south European migrant route. The migrations required a joint European solution, and the measures suggested at the CEDC level were necessary as an emergency response.
Minister Buljević expressed the support from the Republic of Croatia for the initiative on the employment of all resources available to assist the hardest hit countries along the southeast European migrant route, and pledged the contribution from Croatia as well. The Minister emphasised that the Initiative, along with the wider European strategy of managing the migrant situations, had to be complemented with wider efforts on curbing the ISIL as the root of the  migration.
With regard to formulating their final common views on further strategy of responding to the migrant crisis, the CEDC defence ministers  agreed  on drafting a Declaration on the issue of migration along the southeast European route by 12 April and on forwarding it to the EU’s High Representative Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, for discussion at one of the upcoming ministerial meetings of the EU.
In the second panel the defence ministers of the CEDC countries and Poland discussed further co-operation within the initiative. Minister Buljević emphasised that the CEDC confirmed its relevancy and utility, which is of current importance, in view of the crises and challenges posing a major pressure on the cohesion and solidarity.
Addressing the co-operation domains the Minister emphasised the importance of the new initiative – the use of military capabilities in the even of disasters and the options to improve the cross-border co-operation within CEDC; the Minister quoted the examples of the co-operation such as the training of special forces and of helicopter crews, and underlined the potential for enhanced co-operation and capabilities provided in the CEDC Catalogue of Training prepared by Croatia.
The second panel was concluded with a Letter of Intent on the Use of Military Capabilites in Disasters and Options on Improved Cross-border Co-operation within the CEDC.
The Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) is an initiative focussed on enhanced co-operation among the member countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland as observer) in the domain of defence.