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It is a great pleasure and
honour welcoming you to the Common Security and Defence Policy Orientation
Course, organized by the Security and Defence Academy of the Ministry of
Defence and the Austrian National Defence Academy.
This event takes place for the
second consecutive year, under the auspices of the European Security and
Defence College (ESDC) and supported by the European Parliament Office in
Cyprus.
One of our goals at the
Ministry of Defence is to further strengthen and promote the active and substantial
participation of Cyprus in all actions and programs of the Common Defence and
Security Policy (CSDP) pillar of the EU.
Through this participation we
seek to advance and upgrade the operational capabilities of our National
Guard and highlight the role of the Republic of Cyprus, as a pillar of
stability and security in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region.
We strongly support the
strategic autonomy of the EU, which will provide security to all EU Member
States and stability and peace in the wider Euro-Mediterranean area. The EU
Strategic autonomy, as the High Representative Josep Borrell underlined, “is
not a magic wand, but a process, a long-term one, intended to ensure that
Europeans increasingly take charge of themselves”. And he is correct. The
concept as such, is not new. In fact, strategic autonomy has been part of the
agreed language of the EU for quite a long time.
We also invest heavily in
promoting the creation of a common European security and defence culture,
especially via common training. In this context, the last two years, our
Security and Defence Academy organized with the support of local and
international institutions, twelve international training activities and
conferences, all of them open to all EU Member States and most of them also
accessible to other partners, especially from our neighbourhood.
Topics of high interest and
value like Cyber Security, Climate Change and Security, Project Management in
EU Missions and Operations, Future of the EU Security and Defence, Leadership,
Gender mainstreaming in the Military training and in the CSDP Missions and
Operations, were highlighted in these events, giving the opportunity to
officials from EU Member States, institutions, agencies, academic and
industrial partners, to obtain a better understanding of the Common Security
and Defence Policy, the EU priorities, common values, strategies, structures
and procedures.
We are also strongly promoting
the idea and encouraging our Security Academy to co-organize events and
trainings with other national and foreign actors, with which we share a
common vision for a better and more secure world, based on common values and
aspirations. Building on this experience and network, we decided to increase
our efforts and we have already scheduled numerous international activities
for the current calendar year, three of them in partnership with Austria and
the rest with different partners from Belgium, Romania, Poland, UK, USA, the
European Commission and the European Defence Agency.
These common endeavours proved
to have great added value, not only at the level of participating actors and
institutions, but also on a higher political level. They create trustful
bonds between our state institutions and people, common understanding of our
challenges and threats and have always had a positive impact on the relations
between our States.
The cooperation between Cyprus
and Austria is a longstanding and multidimensional one. And for this, allow
me to extend my thanks and gratitude to our Austrian partners for their professionalism
and cooperation.
Allow me to focus on our joint
efforts and cooperation in Common Security and Defence Policy training.
In cooperation with the
Theresan Military Academy we developed the curriculum of the “Common Module
on Leadership Course”. Under this joint effort, Cyprus & Austria
co-organized the module in Cyprus as a pilot activity in 2015 and 2016. In
2017, that curriculum was approved as a Common European Module, implemented
fully or partially, by a number of military academies in the EU. This
activity is being organized since, on an annual basis, always in cooperation
with Austria.
Cyprus has also contributed to
the Austrian initiative of the CSDP handbook series – a reference document
which is broadly distributed in Europe and beyond; Austria and Cyprus are
amongst the biggest contributors of CSDP trainings under the European
Security and Defence College and since last year started the co organization
of initiatives like the current one.
Following the success of these
efforts, the Cyprus Security and Defence Academy and the Austrian National
Defence Academy, decided to continue their cooperation in 2023, through the
joint organization of the “European Armaments Cooperation Course” to be held
in Cyprus in November 2023 and to jointly organize the second module of the
CSDP high level Course in November 2024.
Last, but not least, we are
preparing a joint organization of a new course on Defence Geo-economics, to
be held in Brussels in November 2023, with a third partner from Belgium, the
Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, which has always
supported Cyprus CSDP courses since 2009, with prominent speakers like Dr.
Sven Biscop, who you will have the opportunity to listen to in a few minutes
in the opening panel.
Before closing, allow me to
thank the 17 distinguished speakers and their sending institutions, and all
the organizing staff for their contribution to this important common training
event, bringing all this experience from across the EU here in Cyprus. I
would also like to thank the 31 participants from 13 EU Member States and
their sending institutions.
I would also like to thank our
partners for helping us delivering this course, the Austrian National Defence
Academy, the European Parliaments office in Cyprus and the Member of the
European Parliament Mr Costas Mavrides who is honouring us today with his
participation in our opening panel.
Finally, I am very pleased to
welcome and thank especially the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence
of the Republic of Austria, Dr. Arnold Kammel. Dear Arnold, thank you so much
for finding the time out of your busy schedule to be with us.
I would like to wish you all a
pleasant and fruitful training and stay in Cyprus.
Thank you very much.
(MV/ECHR)
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