25.07.2017.
Cooperation of the Ministry of Defence and Czech Development Agency
Director for European integration and project management of Defence Policy Sector Colonel PhD Katarina Štrbac signed today with Ambassador of Czech Republic in our country, Ivana Hlavsova, a Memorandum of Understanding for a donation to be provided to the Peacekeeping Operations Centre of Serbian Armed Forces. It is a document on cooperation between the Ministry of Defence and Czech Development Agency and the donation consists of technical equipment of the value of some 30,000 euros.
The cooperation is a part of the project “Support to development of national capacities of the Republic of Serbia for civilian contribution to peace support operations and civilian crisis management” in which the Ministry of Defence participates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry for European Integration and International and Security Affairs Centre (ISAC fond) and which is financed by Czech Development Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.
Today’s signing was also attended by Head of Operations Department of the General Staff of Serbian Armed Forces Brigadier General Duško Živković and Acting Head of Peacekeeping Operations Centre Colonel Nikola Dejanović. On that occasion, a delegation headed by Ambassador Hlavsova visited the capacities of the Peacekeeping Operations Centre and she also attended the presentation about the tasks, use and the system of training that is conducted in the Centre.
In line with the requirement of the European Union to strengthen the capacities of Serbia to participate in civilian missions, and in keeping with the agreement reached at the meeting of Negotiations group on Chapter 31, held in March 2016, a Subgroup of the Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces was established upon decision of the Minister of Defence in charge of providing legal framework and strengthening institutional capacities for the participation of Serbia in civilian missions under the auspices of the European Union.
The Chair of the Subgroup is Colonel Katarina Štrbac, and the members are from the Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces. The result of the work of the Subgroup done so far is the harmonised Action Plan which stems from the Report on the need to establish a national legal framework and institutional capacities for the participation of civilian structures from Serbia in multinational operations, adopted by the Government in May 2017.
This document envisages that Peacekeeping Operations Centre conducts predeployment training of civilians for peacekeeping operations. Accordingly, the Centre is currently preparing a basic programme for the training of civilian experts whom Serbia will send to some of the European Union missions.
