BUDAPEST, December 16 (AVN) - Hungary will continue to participate in the establishment of international military groups in Europe, a high-ranking official in the Hungarian General Staff told the Military News Agency.
At the moment three projects are being worked on. An intergovernmental agreement has been signed on establishment of a Hungarian-Slovak-Italian brigade on the base of the Italian motorised rifle division 'Julia'. The brigade is to be formed by the end of 2000 and will take part in peacekeeping operations.
The second project concerns the forming of a joint Hungarian-Romanian peacekeeping battalion, which will be reporting to the UN and the OSCE in crisis-spots of Central and Southern Europe. The battalion is to be formed in the first quarter of 2000. The first exercise of the battalion will take place in the locality of Arad (Romania) 20 km away for the Hungarian border.
The third project is a joint Hungarian-Ukrainian engineering unit, which will be used in places of natural disasters and catastrophes. It is said that Slovakia also wants to join in.