Minister of National Defence, Mihai Stanisoara, will participate on 12 March 2009 in the two-day informal meeting of Defence Ministers of the EU member states to start in Prague, during the Czech Presidency.
The Czech Republic defined the current directions of action within the European Security and Defence Policy to coordinate the running on, EU operations and missions, to increase the European defence capability that have been initiated by the French Presidency and to avoid the duplicate between the NATO and the EU, and to strengthen the strategic Partnership between the Alliance and the Union. On the two day informal meeting, the Defence Ministers will focus on the stage of the EU military operations to manage the states of crisis, stressing on ALTHEA operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the military capability projects run under the coordination of the European Defence Agency and the EU partnerships in the area of international security.
In addition, the Defence Ministers will debate the NATO-EU strategic partnership to identify the solutions to relieve the relations between the Union and the Alliance, the cooperation in the theatres of operations where NATO and the EU are participating in, i.e. Kosovo and Afghanistan.

MoND Press Office