On 29th November 2024, the second Defence Policy Directors’ meeting took place under the Hungarian Presidency of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC). Chaired by László Hajnik, Deputy State Secretary for Defence Policy, the meeting reviewed the main activities of the CEDC during the one-year Hungarian Presidency.
These include the planned establishment of the Western Balkans Security and Defence College in Montenegro and the successful implementation of the CBRN Surveillance as a Service (SaaS) PESCO project. The defence directors also shared their views on a draft Hungarian-initiated study on the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the Western Balkans. One of the driving forces behind the establishment of the CEDC in 2010 was to promote defence capability development cooperation between the participants. This is currently seen as an opportunity for member countries in the areas of integrated air and missile defence, electronic warfare, loitering munitions and main battle tank modernisation. To support small and medium-sized enterprises in the defense sphere, it was a common understanding that they should compete for EU defence industrial funding separately from large defence industrial consortia.
At the meeting, the parties agreed on the importance of stability and security in the Western Balkans and underlined that advancing the region’s Euro-Atlantic integration is in our common interest. Given the region’s vulnerability to other external actors, they called for the continuation of EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina and KFOR in Kosovo, and agreed on the importance of joint engagement. They stressed the need to make the best use of both NATO’s Defence Capability Building (DCB) initiative and the EU’s European Peace Facility (EPF) to develop the region’s defence capabilities, including through cooperation between CEDC countries.
During the meeting, the defence policy directors also discussed the war in Ukraine and the conflicts in the Middle East, as well as their involvement in the stabilisation of African countries. Slovakia, which will take over the CEDC presidency on 1st January 2025, presented its priorities, which would focus on holding short, thematic consultations and would establish a joint meeting of defence policy directors and armaments directors as a new format.
