On May 3 and 4 Defence Minister Csaba Hende attended the Defence Ministerial Meeting of the Visegrád Cooperation (V4) countries in the town of Litomericé in the Czech Republic, which is currently holding the presidency of the Visegrád Group.
Defence Minister Csaba Hende held discussions with Christian Schmidt, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Defence on the opportunities of expanding the scope of German–Hungarian military cooperation.
With the governmental decree No. 1126/2012 (25/04), the government of Hungary extended the mandate of the HDF Mi-35 Air Mentor Team (AMT), which now runs until 1 September 2012. The HDF AMT is tasked with training the Afghan Air Force in Afghanistan.
In particular, thinking about patriotism has a special stake nowadays, especially when working on the renewal of the Hungarian defence system, “… and when thinking about the future of Europe what is in a crisis now” – said Csaba Hende Defence Minister of Hungary at the conference “Patriotism in the European Union”, organised by the Association of the Hungarian Graduates of Germany in 21 April.
This year Hungary is not planning to significantly reduce its contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, but it has started discussions with the allies on the timeline of the expected future drawdown – Defence Minister Dr. Csaba Hende told General John Allen, the Commander of ISAF in Brussels on April 18.
On April 18 Maj.-Gen. László Domján, the Commander of the HDF Joint Force Command paid a visit to Potsdam at the invitation of Lt-Gen. Rainer Glatz, the Commander of the Bundeswehr Operations Command.