Ministerial meeting within the South-Eastern Defence Ministerial (SEDM) initiative

SEDM

Ministerial meeting within the South-Eastern Defence Ministerial (SEDM) initiative was held today within the second Comprehensive Regional Ministerial (the CRM).

Opening the meeting the Minister of Defence prof Milica Pejanovic Djurisic said that the South-eastern Europe Defence Ministerial Process (SEDM) has managed to maintain its regional importance and the meeting is a good opportunity to discuss views and ideas that could be further exercised through this initiative. She also said that the existing cooperation in defence sector is a reflection of our political maturity and we should continue upgrading and improving it by taking into consideration new threats, risks and challenges that may occur in our part of Europe. “Being an effective platform for discussing political and military issues, SEDM process represents a forum where member nations promote regional cooperation through collective efforts and facilitate integration into Euro-Atlantic integration contributing to a vision of a unified and free Europe, in peace”, said the Minister Pejanovic Djurisic. 

The Speaker of the Parliament Ranko Krivokapic addressing the SEDM participants said that that the history of the Balkan is full of “back and forward” steps and that in the contemporary situation for Montenegro and for the countries of the region NATO Alliance represents the best guarantee of peace and stability. Mr Krivokapic also said that Montenegro is ready to be reliable partner, as well as a place of merging new values contributing to successful regional cooperation with participation and influence of Euro-Atlantic and European institutions. 

Romanian Ministry of Defence State Secretary and Chairman of SEDM Valeriu Nicut, said that facing the serious threats caused by state and non-state actors, current geopolitical context requires developing and adapting of strategies in order to achieve necessary readiness to respond to contemporary challenges and threats. “One of the common aims is improvement of SEEBRIG operational capabilities, particularly concerning participation in international missions”, said Nicut.    

Participants agreed that this meeting was very successful and that significant steps had been taken for the continuity of SEDM Initiative, particularly through the adoption of common Budget and SEEBRIG Annual Plan for 2015.

Participants stressed that the duplication of the activities should be reduced to a minimum, and the ongoing projects such as Building Integrity, Female Leadership, Security and Defence, Interconnection of Military Hospitals, South-Eastern Simulation Network-SEESIM will be further continued and adapted to the new security realities. Additionally, they saluted the decision of Ankara to take over COMSEEBRIG Chairmanship within SEDM for 2015-2017, decision of Bucharest for assuming 16 exercises and the leading Nations of the SEDM projects.

It was saluted the offer of Tirana to assume the organization of the Deputy Chiefs of Defence meeting in 2015 and the determination of Zagreb to host the next year SEDM meeting, as well as efforts of Georgia to become full-fledged member of SEDM initiative.



SEDM Initiative Members are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Italy, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey and USA, while Georgia and Moldova have observer status.