ICDT participated as a key partner in GLOBSEC 2012, the annual security and foreign policy forum of Central Europe, organized by the Slovak Atlantic Commission (SAC) between 12-14 April 2012 in Bratislava. The Centre was represented by Ambassador István Gyarmati and Mr. Dániel Bartha at the three day long forum. With 20 different sessions and numerous separate expert meetings, the event covered the most actual topics of Euro-Atlantic cooperation, European integration, or the effects of the global financial crisis on defence policies.

In the opening speech of the forum, the newly reelected prime minister of the Slovak Republic, Mr. Robert Fico, emphasized his cabinet’s intentions not only to follow the path of NATO and EU to tackle the destructive effects of rising unemployment rates and extremism, but also to become the engine of European integration.

As a Central European forum, GLOBSEC highly focused on the contribution of the V4 to the smart defence initiative of NATO. Therefore, the conference concentrated on the DAV4 Initiative (Defence Austerity Visegrad Four), which is an advocacy and research program of four key policy institutions from the Visegrad region, including ICDT. Within the framework of the initiative, supervised also by SAC, the Hungarian expert team (including Mr. Attila Demkó, Head of Department of Defence Planning, Gen. László Tömböl, Former Chief of Defence of Hungary, and Amb. Gyarmati) participated in numerous side-meetings with decisionmakers from V4 and NATO and in panels and press conferences.

On the second day of the conference, ICDT also organized a late night session fully dedicated to the situation of Kosovo. The keynote speaker, Mr. Petrit Selimi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo, presented the various difficulties the young nation currently faces, and also gave an insight about how the country hopes to become a fully respected and recognized member of both the international and the European community.