Brussels, HQ 8 June 2001

South East Europe Security Cooperation Steering Group (SEEGROUP) Chairman's Progress Report Following its establishment as part of the NATO South East Europe Initiative (SEEI) in the second half of 2000, the SEEGROUP continued its work in 2001 under the Chairmanship of Croatia. The meetings took place once a month. The main thrust of the work was aimed at the implementation of the agreed Action Plan for 2000/2001, that was submitted to the EAPC foreign and defence ministers for the notation at their meetings in Brussels in December 2000. Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (1), Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America continued their participation in the SEEGROUP. The SEEGROUP especially benefited from continuous and active participation of interested NATO Allies, as well as non-regional interested PfP Partner countries. Additionally, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia joined the work of the SEEGROUP at the meeting in May 2001. Since the SEEGROUP has been designed to support regional practical co-operation in the area of security and defence, as well as to improve harmonisation and coordination among the regional countries, representatives of the Stability Pact for South East Europe regularly attended the meetings and contributed to the work. Also, the co-chairman of the Stability Pact Working Table on Security Issues, Ambassador Vladimir Drobnjak of Croatia was invited to the meeting in January, where he outlined the Croatian co-chairmanship's priorities for the work in the first half of 2001. Finally, continuous support and facilitation of the NATO International Staff representatives remains invaluable for the work of the SEEGROUP and its interaction with the Alliance. Several regionally oriented projects and initiatives were discussed in the SEEGROUP and welcomed by its participants, inter alia: Forest Fire Fighting Exercise Following on a project, which was submitted earlier to the Stability Pact Working Table on Security Issues, Croatia initiated a discussion on the proposal to host a regional open area fire fighting exercise, aimed at enhancement of the regional capabilities to prevent and manage natural and human-caused disasters. According to the proposal, the exercise, provisionally named "Taming Dragon 2002", should become part of the Partnership Work Programme and would involve planning and assistance of NATO experts, most notably the EADRCC. Furthermore, the exercise enjoys the support of the Stability Pact Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Initiative (DPPI) and will draw on the expertise gathered therein. The discussion in the SEEGROUP showed high level of interest and support for the exercise among the participants. It is envisaged that the initial intentions for participation by the individual regional and non-regional countries would be expressed at the forthcoming meeting of the SEEGROUP in Zagreb on 11 June 2001, preceding the meeting of the Stability Pact Working Table on 12/13 June 2001. The initial planning conference should follow during the summer, after which the planning would continue, with the goal of conducting the exercise by May 2002. Database of projects relevant to SEEI and Stability Pact According to its Action Plan, the SEEGROUP initiated work on development of an inventory or database of ongoing projects and requirements relevant to the SEEI and the Stability Pact Working Table on Security Issues. The original idea is to create an Internet-accessible and -searchable central database that would improve co-ordination, increase public attention and promote integrated strategy related to the projects. With that in mind, and after preliminary discussion, this idea was extended in the way to comprise not only ongoing projects, but also the proposed ones, that are not included in the existing Quick Start Package database of the Stability Pact, in order to also support the preparatory process for pledging conferences. Switzerland agreed to evaluate the feasibility of such a database and conducted exploratory discussions with the Stability Pact Working Table - Subtable Defence and Security Issues, as well as with the contractor managing the current Stability Pact Quick Start Package database. A draft project proposal was developed by Switzerland as a result of those discussions and distributed among the participants of the SEEGROUP. It proposes to extend the current Stability Pact database to meet the goals set within the SEEGROUP. After consultations, the SEEGROUP would follow-up on the Swiss proposal, in close co-ordination with the representatives of the Stability Pact. Initiative for Transparency of Defence Budgeting The SEEGROUP took note of the conclusions from the first joint meeting of the Multinational Steering Group (MSG) and the Academic Working Group (AWG) of the Initiative for Transparency of Defence Budgeting, that was held on 15/16 March 2001 in Vienna. The meeting was organised jointly by Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. A number of SEEGROUP participating countries were represented at the meeting, alongside the representatives of the Special Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact, OSCE Secretariat and NATO International Staff. One of the conclusions from the meeting was that the SEEGROUP, with the support from NATO, could be an appropriate framework for mobilising expertise, as well as political and financial support for this initiative among NATO member States and interested EAPC/PfP Partners. The SEEGROUP undertook to follow-up on this conclusion, as well as to consider ways to support the implementation of the MSG paper adopted at the meeting. Interaction with other SEEI initiatives Parallel with the work of the SEEGROUP, work was conducted on the drafting of the South East Europe Common Assessment Paper on Regional Security Challenges and Opportunities (SEECAP), another SEEI-based initiative. This work was successfully concluded on 29 May 2001 with the endorsement of SEECAP by the foreign ministers of the SEECAP participating States, on the margins of the EAPC meeting in Budapest on 30 May 2001. Although SEEGROUP as such was not directly involved in the preparation of the SEECAP, it closely followed this process, due to the large overlap in the SEEGROUP/SEECAP participation, but also due to the number of issues addressed in SEECAP that are of interest for the work of the SEEGROUP. On the other hand, in the discussions during the preparation of SEECAP a number of countries expressed the opinion that SEEGROUP could serve as a forum for further elaboration of certain issues, as well as for facilitation of the SEECAP follow-up. The SEEGROUP agreed that, following the endorsement of the SEECAP, it would start discussion on the modalities to support the SEECAP follow-up, as well as to include in its future agenda the issues such as reform of the security agencies, border control and others. The SEEGROUP continues its work with the preparation for the meeting in Zagreb preceding the Stability Pact Working Table on Security Issues, which will mark the end of its second half-year period. The first six months, under the Chairmanship of Bulgaria, saw the realisation from the initial idea to the establishment of a new regional security and defence related forum. The following six months have proved the usefulness of its existence and outlined the directions of its future work and development. It is envisaged that, in the next period, the existing Action Plan would be evaluated and revised as necessary, in order to reflect the ideas and initiatives raised in the SEEGROUP meetings and summarised in this report. The next SEEGROUP Chairmanship, starting as of 1 July 2001, will be determined in due course, following the consultations between interested countries. Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey recognize the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional name.