Visegrád States Form EU Battle Group

March 7, 2013

 

 

Polish, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech defense ministers on Wednesday signed a letter of intent to form a battle group with soldiers from the Visegrád countries, forms  a part of the European Union Rapid Reaction Force, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said.
The agreement was signed during the Visegrád Group (V4) summit in Warsaw.Summit is attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
Visegrád battle group is of  3,000 servicemen, 1,200 contributed by Poland.Siemoniak said,’ this is the first step toward promoting military cooperation in Central Europe.’ “Multilateral cooperation in the security and defense areas is especially relevant today, as many countries are cutting their defense spending,”
V4 was established in 1991, its members joining the EU in May 2004,V4 defense ministers decided to form the battle group in May 2011, group agreeing armed forces so formed to hold regular exercises in collaboration with the NATO Force. Further  aims to “contribute to design  European security architecture” based on effective cooperation and coordination within the existing European according to the group policy statement. Media agencies