István Simicskó, minister of Defense, is currently leading the Hungarian delegation at a NATO meeting to discuss the challenges surrounding the security of the Baltic region.
During the conference, defense ministers of the Visegrád Cooperation also held a separate session with their Baltic allies. Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts were present during this meeting in Brussels.
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 of the talks, Minister 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.
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 minister emphasized that the Hungarian defense forces are going to develop their capabilities in many fields by cooperating with the militaries of the Visegrád Four countries.
The plans include holding collective training events and multinational exercises as well, in the interest of increasing the interoperability of the participating military units