Fifteen NATO defence ministers, in Brussels on Thursday, signed a letter of intent for the common acquisition of air defence systems, but Croatia is not among them for now because it is already discussing the matter bilaterally with France, Defence Minister Mario Banozic said.

The participating nations aim to create a European air and missile defence system by acquiring air defence equipment such as Arrow 3 or Patriot missiles as part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, spearheaded by Germany.

Banozic said that Croatia had discussed this with Germany, but decided to postpone its accession because it was already in talks with France to acquire a short-range air defence system.

“After a drone fell in Zagreb in March this year, we have set air defence as our priority, in particular short-range systems. In bilateral talks with France we have already secured resources for one battery and our goal is to secure five batteries in a very short time,” Banozic told reporters after the meeting.

“After that we will automatically focus on medium- and long-term systems, and I am confident that we will bring this story to a successful conclusion. We made this clear in our talks with Germany and now we are waiting to see what systems will be acquired and how we will be able to fit in with our short- and medium-range systems,” he added.

Banozic said that Croatia had entered into talks with France in March, while the German initiative had been discussed for the past few weeks.

He would not reveal details of the systems Croatia wanted to acquire. “I named the country of origin, but I cannot discuss details in the public.”

He added that it would not be late for Croatia to join the German initiative once it saw whether the long-range systems would be compatible with the short- and medium-range ones.