IT IS a logical move for a small country like Slovakia to share defence costs with its neighbours, President Andrej Kiska told journalists after his visit to the Defence Ministry on July 7.
Kiska met with officials from the Defence Ministry for the first time on that day and as commander-in-chief received a detailed overview of the state of the army and its plans for the future. He also discussed the basic issues concerning the upcoming NATO summit in Wales, the TASR newswire reported.
“We’ll certainly continue with these meetings until the Wales summit because we need to bring our outputs into alignment and present a unified message [to the Alliance],” said Defence Minister Martin Glváč, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
Kiska said that he is aware of the problems with modernisation and is glad to see that a portion of the budget has been transferred from personnel costs to that area.
When asked by reporters about his opinion on military budgeting, Kiska replied that he is listening to the arguments of both the Defence Ministry and Prime Minister Robert Fico. According to the latter, there is no room for boosting the military budget.
Slovakia allocates approximately 1 percent of its GDP to defence, which means that - similar to the majority of NATO countries - it is failing to meet a political agreement under which NATO members are expected to invest 2 percent of GDP in defence purposes.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports.
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information
presented in its Flash News postings.
