06.09.2016.
Conference on standardization in the field of finance in the armed forces
The 83rd Financial Working Group Conference has opened today at Metropol Palace hotel in Belgrade. The Ministry of Defence is the host of the three-day gathering with the participation of representatives from 14 member countries of NATO and Partnership for Peace.The conference was opened by Assistant Minister for Budget and Finance Radmila Jagodic and wished the participants in the gathering successful working part of the conference.
"The area of finance is always interesting and controversial. All of us are faced with the question how to deal with the means that we have and complete the work we had planned or targeted. By hosting this conference, here in Belgrade, we show our interest in acquiring new knowledge in this field", Radmila Jagodic said.
Colonel Sasa Trandafilovic, PhD, Head of the Budget Department, welcomed the participants, especially Jup Loub, Secretary of the Financial Working Group, and representatives of the Joint Standardization Board in the NATO HCQ and pointed out that finance plays an increasingly significant role in the armed forces.
"More and more emphasis is given to the development and improvement of financial services, which were initially aimed at merely reporting to increasingly take on the role of strategic financial management. As a country that participates in the Partnership for Peace programme, we pay special attention to the achievement of partnership goals and alignment with other European countries and the European Union. For the time being, we are successfully achieving our common goals, and replacing them with the new ones. On that path, very important place belongs to standardisation, which has recently become one of the goals of our partnership", Colonel Trandafilovic said.
He added that standardization in the field of finance strongly contributes to interoperability and the efficient and effective use of the always limited available resources, improving the operational capabilities of our armed forces.The Financial Working Group is one of the groups within the NATO Military Committee Joint Standardization Board, which deals with standardization in the field of finance. These standards are applied during the conclusion and implementation of bilateral and multilateral agreements on the common appearance of forces in the field by participating in international missions around the world. Serbia has been a member of the Financial Working Group since 2011 and is actively involved for five years in a row, and our representative in that working group is Major Dejan Krpic.
At such meetings the discussion is held on updating the STANAG 6025 financial standard, which defines international procedures and terminology in the field of finance, which are standardized for the purpose of interoperability between the countries. There are about 350 NATO approved financial terms. Our country has not ratified STANAG 6025 yet, because, as a country of the Partnership for Peace, we are not obligated to do that, but, as Colonel Trandafilovic said at this meeting, in due course we aim to include these standards in our regulations and legislation, to order to be compatible tomorrow.
