“With the Members of the Parliament and subsequently with Minister Kunasek, we have debated situation in the Western Balkans, joint defence projects within the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation as well as the joint exercise COOPSEC 2019 that the Central European countries will carry out in October. These are important topics to our countries,” said Lubomír Metnar. To his Austrian counterpart, he has also reiterated the offer to deliver L-39NG aircraft and to provide training to the Austrian Armed Forces.

Cooperation with Austrians works fine

In 2018, some 40 bilateral activities took place, in particular in the area of education and training. Both sides wish to pursue this track.

“The exercise Cooperative Security 2019 that will take place in Hungary in October is one of our priorities. We will build on the experience from the 2017 exercise in Austria in which 80 Czech and more than 2 000 Austrian troops took part,” added Minister Metnar.

“The Czech Republic belongs to the Austria´s most important and most reliable international partners,” commented Minister Kunasek after the meeting.

Lubomír Metnar used the occasion to invite Mario Kunasek to the 2019 IDET fair that will take place in Brno at the end of May.