Croatia takes over the chairmanship of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) initiative from Slovenia in 2021 and will work on improving cooperation together with southeastern European countries, Defence Minister Mario Banozic said after a meeting of CEDC defence ministers in Postojna, Slovenia on Wednesday.

The meeting took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, involving the defence ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, which has observer status. The meeting was hosted by Slovenian Defence Minister Matej Tonin.

They discussed ways of improving regional cooperation between the CEDC members and the countries of southeastern Europe, their common contribution to the initiative to strengthen civilian-military cooperation within the EU, and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defence Ministry said in a press release.

They were joined online by the defence ministers of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo. The CEDC ministers expressed their support to the five countries on their paths towards Euroatlantic integration.

“I have no doubt that eventually we will see the whole of our region integrated into the Euroatlantic family. We the CEDC ministers are here to help in this process,” Banozic said.

CEDC is a regional security and defence initiative launched in 2012 to explore possibilities of pooling and sharing of defence capabilities. It comprises Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Poland as an observer.