EU defence officials meet in Sopot

The two-day informal conference of deputy defence ministers and heads of respective departments within the ministries will start in the Baltic resort of Sopot on Monday.

“No decisions will be made during the meeting. Its aim is to discuss issues of interest, present priorities and exchange opinions,” Marcin Kazmierski, the head of the department of security policy at the Polish Ministry of Defence told the PAP news agency.

Apart from Polish military officials, the assistant of NATO’s secretary-general responsible for defence policy will participate in it along with representatives of the European Defence Agency (EDA).

One of the priorities of Poland’s EU Council presidency is to increase the usefulness of bloc’s combat groups which assume their duties on a rotational basis, although they have yet to be deployed in a crisis situation.

The troops’ deployment in civilian efforts is one of the major points on the agenda, as well as the EU’s anti-piracy Atalanta naval mission in Somalia.

The conference is to prepare the ground for the informal meeting of the EU defence ministers in the south-western city of Wroclaw in September, after which a formal meeting in Brussels scheduled towards the end of Poland’s EU six-month presidency. (di/jb)