From Tuesday to Thursday, October 04 – 06, the third working-level “Defence Policy Workshop” of the CEDC Austrian chairmanship 2022 took place. On behalf of the Director General Dr. Arnold Kammel and the head of the defence policy directorate Dr. Peter Vorhofer, the Austrian Ministry of Defence conducted the workshop in the military owned seminar centre in Reichenau an der Rax, Lower Austria. The former Rothschild castle offered a beautiful scenery for three very productive days.
Loic Simonet from the Austrian Institute for International Affairs supported and moderated the workshop, in which experts and policy officers discussed openly about the next and upcoming projects of the CEDC. Ongoing exchanging on the working level is one of the key pillars of the CEDC and future projects among partners, require extensive coordination among the CEDC countries.
Mr. Sagmeister from the procurement branch of the Austrian Ministry of Defence gave the participants an update on the CEDC CBRN SaaS PESCO project. While important milestone have already been archived and the research project is underway, more coordination and support is needed in order to develop it further. COL Anderle also gave a short update regarding the ongoing developments after the CEDC handed in the non-paper on the “Western Balkans Defence College”. While many more initiatives and projects were discussed, it is also immanent, that Austria’s CEDC presidency 2022 is coming to an end. Therefore, ideas and proposals must now be developed into concrete projects in order to take shape by the end of Austria’s presidency.
