State Secretary Simunovic held talks in NATO and EU on defence cooperation
State Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Pjer Simunovic paid official visit on Tuesday, 19 and Wednesday, 20 April 2011, to NATO and the EU in Brussels where he held a series of meetings.
During his visit Simunovic met the Director of planning and crisis management at the European External Action Service, Walter Stevens, and has participated in the meeting of the directors for defence policy of the Central European Solution for pooling and sharing of capabilities.
Central European Solution for pooling and sharing of capabilities is an initiative launched by the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Hungary and which includes six Central European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia). The basic idea of this initiative is that within the limited financial and defence budgets, to explore options of pooling and sharing regarding the development of defence capabilities that could eventually lead to joint projects in support of retaining and strengthening the current and required military capabilities. During the meeting they discussed next steps to operationalize these initiatives.
MOD State Secretary Simunovic also met the permanent chairman of the EU political-military committee Olof Skoog and Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO for the security challenges Jamie Shea, and participated in the meeting of the EU – NATO group to develop skills at the level of political directors.
At a meeting with the permanent chairman of the EU political-military committee the talks were about developing a Common Security Defence Policy (CSDP), the EU battle groups and Croatian participation in it, the situation in Libya, and on possible EU involvement in Libya. They also discussed the issues regarding the Croatia’s EU membership negotiations and the situation in our region.
State Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Simunovic and Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO Shea discussed about a new role of NATO and the security challenges. They also discussed the organization of the Conference on Energy Security that will be held in May this year in Zagreb, and they exchanged views on new threats and challenges.