On 4 and 5 September 2019, a meeting of the Visegrad Four Chiefs of Defence was held in Štiřín near Prague. It was the opening military meeting of the Czech Presidency of the Visegrad Four.
The event was opened by the Chief of General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, General Aleš Opata, together with his First Deputy, Lieutenant General Jaromír Zůna, and the Director of the MoD Capabilities Planning Division, Major General Jaromír Alan. The Slovak delegation was led by General Daniel Zmeko, the Polish one by Lieutenant General Rajmund T. Andrzejczak, and the Hungarian one by Lieutenant General Ferenc Korom.
During the two-day working meeting, the four delegations covered their common areas of interest, such as training and capabilities sharing within the V4 EU Battle Groups, but also the subjects the Czech Republic has declared as priorities during the Czech Presidency. The agenda of the meeting connected with previous V4 political meetings.
Meeting outcomes
The Generals agreed that a plan of activities of an expert Working Group for V4 Battle Groups would be created. They further agreed on the creation of crossborder training areas for V4 countries for the joint training of Visegrad Four air forces and on the operational engagement by V4 air forces. They approved the 2019-23 common training plan. The CHODs identified cyber defence as one of the critical areas of defence cooperation within the V4. The last item the V4 Chiefs of Defence discussed was the exchange of opinions concerning the common operational engagement of the V4 countries in the context of NATO’s and the EU’s response to the security environment.
In the V4 meeting in May earlier this year, the Czech Republic presented a non-paper with initial proposals of changes in the policy of planning and developing the V4 EU Battle Groups. The meeting decided to form a Working Group comprising subject matter experts with the mission to perform an in-depth analysis of the proposed changes in the domain of structure, time of readiness and the rotation cycle of the future V4 EU BGs. The Working Group will produce a military recommendation on the changes in the concept of building the future V4 EU BGs.
Common exercise under the Czech baton
At the beginning of October 2019, the training exercise Czech Lion 2019 will be held as part of the Czech V4 Presidency with the 7th Brigade Task Force and mechanised forces from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It will train almost 800 servicemembers in the Hranice and Přáslavice garrisons and in the Simulation and Trainer Technology Centre Brno. It is a part of the V4 exercise series, the so-called “Training Initiative”.
The Czech Armed Forces will be represented by the 7th Mechanised Brigade, 73rd Tank Battalion, 132nd Artillery Battalion and additional support elements. The Czech Air Force will assign the 25th Air Defence Missile Regiment and 22nd Helicopter Air Base.
The exercise is designed to hone the skills and abilities of the commanders and multinational staffs to control the forces of the Brigade Battle Group, jointly plan and conduct combat operations, and flexibly respond to the current situation in the battlefield.
Czech Presidency priorities
The Czech Presidency focuses on a strategic review of the V4 defence cooperation, the development of V4 capabilities and harmonisation of V4 defence planning, building a common position concerning the harmonisation of EU and NATO defence planning, as well as a common position on PESCO. The Czech Presidency is also concerned with training and education to strengthen force interoperability, creating multinational Battle Groups and seeking opportunities for deeper armaments cooperation both in NATO and the EU. On the regional level, the goal of the Czech Presidency is to provide support to the stabilisation of the Sahel countries.
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