The 48th Meeting of the RACVIAC Steering body MAG, Multinational Advisory Group, which gathered the representatives of Members and Associate Members, took place on 12th October 2022 in RACVIAC.
The Meeting was organized under the chairmanship of Romania and was chaired by Ms Irina-Raluca Zidaru, General Director of the Strategic Affairs Department at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the Opening and Adoption of the Agenda, RACVIAC Director MG (ret.) Jeronim Bazo gave a brief presentation of the Director’s Interim Report, and tanked all MAG countries, International organizations, other participants and partners for outstanding support and cooperation: “Our special gratitude goes to RACVIAC core and Associate Members, whose contribution in the form of both highly qualified seconded personnel and very generous contributions has secured the long-lasting future of our joint endeavour“.
Pursuant to the Meeting Agenda, RACVIAC Programme Managers presented the Programme for 2023. This session was aimed at providing detailed information about the proposed Programme for 2023 and information on RACVIAC Projects for 2024.
Furthermore, Major Tihana Kunák Koršić, RACVIAC Operations Manager, provided information on the implementation of the organizational structure and gave a brief overview of the current RACVIAC personnel situation.
Following this presentation Ms Irina-Raluca Zidaru emphasized that staffing RACVIAC with qualified personnel is the key to success: “I believe that MAG considers this to be a responsibility of its highest consideration and that, once more, the “principle of regional ownership” shall be reflected in a regionally balanced staffing of RACVIAC. Accordingly, all Members shall be represented in RACVIAC with at least one individual.” She urged Members that haven’t seconded personnel to RACVIAC to fulfil their obligations as soon as possible.
In addition, Major Sanja Kragujević, Chief of Admin & Finance, presented detailed information on RACVIAC Budget for 2022 as well as the draft budget plan for 2023. A new travel policy was also proposed.
The topic of the nomination of the new MAG Chairperson for the period 2022/2023 was tackled. With regard to the 34th MAG Conclusions on the alphabetical order principle for Members in the nomination procedure for the MAG Chairperson the Republic of Serbia was invited to send information on its nominee for this position. Thus, MAG Secretariat received a nomination from the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia wherein Colonel Nebojša Svjetlica, Head of International Military Cooperation Department in the Ministry of Defence, is being nominated for the position of MAG during the next twelve months.
Following the discussions of the Extraordinary Ad Hoc Meeting of MAG Members on 3rd October, MAG took note and appreciated the willingness of the Republic of Albania to prolong the mandate of Major General (ret.) Jeronim Bazo in the position of RACVIAC Director for 6 months and concluded to decide about the proposed prolongation via the Silence Procedure on 19th October 2022.
Ms Zidaru closed the 48th MAG Meeting and thanked all the participants for their engagement and contribution.
MAG expressed its gratitude to Romania for the excellent job done during the MAG Chairmanship during this demanding period as well as to Ms Zidaru for her exceptional performance as the MAG Chairperson during the last two MAG Meetings.
