Senior defence official Nasta attends FAC, EDA Steering Committee meetings

Senior official for defence policy, planning and international affairs with Romania's Defence Ministry (MApN) Nicolae Nasta will be attending, 13 - 14 May, along with defence and foreign ministers of the EU member states, a Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting and a meeting of European Defense Agency's (EDA) Steering Committee in the format of defence ministers to be held in Brussels. According to a MApN press statement, on the side-lines of the meetings, the EU defence and foreign ministers will meet their counterparts from the G5 Sahel Group members and officials of this organisation to address the security situation in the area. "During two days of discussion, the main aspects of co-operation between the European Union and NATO will be presented, especially in the area of combating hybrid threats, and the recent developments in the joint actions of the two organisations under the EU-NATO Joint Declaration adopted in July 2018," according to MApN. Another item on the agenda will be the Process of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), with the defence ministers expected to pass a European Council recommendation concerning the sequencing of the fulfilment of the more binding commitments undertaken in the framework of permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) and specifying more precise objectives. The EDA Steering Committee will unveil the implementation of the defence initiatives and discuss, among other things, the organisation's 2019 and 2020 budgets. On May 14, the defence ministers will sign the "Optimising Cross Border Movement Permission in Europe" EDA programme agreement as part of the FAC meeting. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Alexandru Florea, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)