Possibilities for the participation of Serbia in the Western Balkans Battle Group

During the discussion, Marko Milosevic presented the BCSP vision of policy “Towards the Western Balkans Battle Group” which offered arguments in favor of proactive integration of Serbia into the EU Common Security and Defence Policy implementing the concept of battle groups until the 2020. In his speech, Milosevic referred to the most recent empirical data on the capacity of Serbia to participate in multinational operations.

“BCSP research and analysis shows that Serbia has military capabilities, in terms of equipment and training of soldiers. It also adopted the necessary legal framework for the participation in the Western Balkan battle group. However, problems still exist as a political decision to participate and the lack of financial resources”, said Milosevic.

Regional security cooperation and assessment of the condition for creating Western Balkan battle group were the topics discussed during the expert round-table “Visegrad Four Experience from the Security Sector Reform: Security and Defence Cooperation of the Western Balkan countries” organized by Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic.

During the discussion, participants discussed about the experience of the Visegrad countries from the cooperation in security and defence, and from the establishment of the EU V4 Battle Group. They also explored the possibilities for the cooperation of the Western Balkan countries in security and defence.

Participants at the round table were representatives of the ministries of defence and foreign affairs as well as non-governmental organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovakia.