From 3 to 6 October, Austria and the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) held the third module of the 10th CSDP training programme for the Western Balkan region. COMEUFOR Major General Friedrich Schrötter invited the course organisers and the participants to visit CAMP BUTMIR (Sarajevo), the headquarters of the military operation European Union Force Althea (EUFOR ALTHEA). EUFOR Althea is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Agreement.
COMEUFOR informed the course participants from the EU member states and Western Balkan partners about the ongoing operation. In his statement, he also underlined the need for a continued presence of the international community, in particular of EUFOR with its executive mandate, in order to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina in its transformation process. BG Reinhard Trischak from the Austrian Ministry of Defence and Sports thanked COMEUFOR for the hospitality. He gave an overview of subjects currently under discussion in the EU and its member states, e.g. the European Global Strategy and its implementation, as well as hot topics such as terrorism and migration. For the latter topic, he presented the new book by Austria and the ESDC on 'Migration – how CSDP can support'.
The European Security and Defence College was established in 2005, with the aim of providing strategic-level education in European Security and Defence Policy, now Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It followed thorough need analysis and experimentation phases. The creation of the ESDC was to give the Common Security and Defence Policy a training and education instrument which actively promotes a European security culture.
