Minister of National Defence Rasa Jukneviciene attended the meeting of the EU Defence Ministers, Brussels, May 18.

Steering Board of the European Defence Agency made introduction to the meeting Ministers with advance made in such areas crucial to capability development as airlift, helicopters, space-based earth surveillance for defence purposes.

In the EU Defence Ministers’ format military operations of the EU were addressed with special focus on the operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and counter-piracy operation off the Somali coast.

Later in the day the same matters were discussed in the joint EU Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministers’ session. R. Juknevicviene stressed that coordination of the EU actions with organisations battling pirates off the Somali coast, especially NATO, could and should be improved by employing the „Berlin Plus“ agreement allowing the EU to draw on NATO’s military capabilities into its own operations.

In the EU Defence Ministers’ meeting in Brussels Memorandum of Understanding on military relations and defence cooperation was signed by the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence and the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence. The new Memorandum will replace the former cooperation agreement. The Memorandum is designed to bring more clarity to the principles of defence cooperation, its sectors and forms, financial issues, drafting cooperation plans and other aspects, with regard to Lithuania’s and Bulgaria’s membership in the EU and NATO.

Danguole Bickauskiene, PR Advisor for the Minister of National Defence, mob. 8 686 06265. 

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More information on the European Defence Agency: http://www.kam.lt/index.php/lt/155095/