CMDR COE celebrates one year activation as a NATO Military Body
Date: (01-04-2016)
One year after the decision of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) for the accreditation of the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence, the Centre celebrates its activation as a NATO Military Body.
The CMDR COE was built by virtue of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Ministry of National Defence of the Hellenic Republic and the Minister of National Defence of the Republic of Poland and the Allied Command Transformation (ACT), signed on 28 August 2013 in Norfolk, United States of America.
The Centre has continuously developed and in some cases expanded the expertise in order to meet the needs of NATO capabilities in the field of crisis management and disaster response. The CMDR COE has provided robust training, exercises and courses. It has been also the host of numerous conferences, workshops, experiments and high level training.
On March 31, 2016, the reception on the CMDR COE Celebration of Accreditation was held in the Losenetz Resedence in Sofia. The event was attended by representatives of the Bulgarian legislative and executive authorities, diplomatic corps from NATO states and Partners, as well as guests from academia and military. Mr Dimitar Kyumyurdzhiev, Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Defence appraised highly the development of Centre since its accreditation. "_In the present strategic environment, the Centre takes on the important task to build capacity of NATO capabilities in crisis management and disaster response. As part of NATO's Smart Defence initiative, it will contribute to enhance the interoperability through research, analyzes, lessons learned, and sharing of information in the aspects of crisis management and disaster response_". The CMDR COE received an array of congratulatory addresses from ministries and entities from Bulgaria and abroad. For substantial contribution and merits and in respect to the first anniversary of the accreditation, the Bulgarian Defence minister awarded personnel from the Center - colonel Milen Milkov, lieutenant-colonels Desislav Zmeev and
Milen Dimov, major Stoyan Stoyanov, master sergeant Plamen Petrov and Mr. Philip Spаssov.
The present ambitious of the Centre is to become very quickly a key player in the Alliance's transformation process. The Centre's first steps as an accredited international military organization are aimed at creating conditions for the implementation of the Alliance's commitment to make full use of the expertise in the domain and to improve national capabilities in crisis management and disaster response and harmonize them with NATO's capabilities. Given the need to acquire a set of knowledge in the field of crisis management and disaster response at regional, national and Alliance level, the Centre carries out five distinguished courses, 3 of them are listed in NATO's catalogue. Currently the CMDR COE is taking part in several projects of strategic character, directly affecting the defence planning in NATO, as well as the understanding of the scope of the Alliance's future operations.
News
The Final Planning Conference of the exercise Saber Guardian 14 has finished successfullyThe Final Planning Conference of the exercise Saber Guardian 14 was held in Sofia last week (3-7 Feb 2014). The CMDR COE experts headed by LtC Orlin Nikolov, head of Capabilities Branch, participated in the workshops of the Contingency Management Planning/Unified Action (CPM/UA) syndicate.
On February 5, 2015, the CPM/UA members met with representatives of several GOs and NGOs. The meeting was arranged by the CMDR COE and co-hosted with the J9 USEUCOM as there were entities as Bulgarian Ministry of Interior, Chief Directorate Fire Safety and Civil Protection, State Agency of National Security, State Agency for Refugees, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Military Medical Academy, Red Cross, Caritas Bulgaria, Gender Research Foundation, Tennessee National Guard, Bulgarian Modeling and Simulation Association (BULSIM). The purpose of the meeting was to present them the scenario and storyline of their engagement into the exercise.
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The initial planning conference for the SEESIM 14 exercise was held in Zagreb, CroatiaThe initial planning conference for the distributed computer assisted exercise South Eastern Europe Simulation Network (SEESIM 14) was held in Zagreb, Croatia. The Republic of Bulgaria is co-organizer and participates actively in the conducting of the exercise together with the Host Nation. Among the participants are also representatives of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Montenegro, Romania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United States of America and the SEEBRIG.
The exercise is held under the auspices of the Ministers of Defence of the SEE Nations.
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CMDR COE FEBRUARY Forthcoming events- In 3-7 of February experts from the CMDR COE team will take part in the Final Planning Conference of the SABER GUARDIAN ′14 Exercise, organized by the US EUCOM and BGR LANDFORCE.
The purpose of the exercise is to train and educate civilian and military participants in planning and conducting an UN mandated Chapter VII Peace Operation/Crisis Response Operation, based on a Comprehensive Approach, and focusing on co-operation and co-ordination within an unstable environment, involving all stakeholders. The principal exercise focus is the civilian-military cooperation and coordination. The scenario supports exercising a wide range of peace operations functions (e.g. rule of law, humanitarian, etc.). The CMDR COE will contribute to achieving the exercise objectives by providing subject matter expert support in the CMDR area and by organizing distributed point for White cell.
- In 11-13 February 2014 the Civil-Military Interaction: Disaster Preparedness and Response Workshop will take place in Sofia. The workshop is sponsored by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria and the CMDR COE. The workshop comprises lectures dedicated to NATO and EU Crisis Management, role of military in civil security, risk management, as well as discussions and tabletop exercise.
Internal CMDR COE Seminar on the Crisis in SyriaThe CMDR COE organised an internal seminar which was held on 20.12.2013. The main focus of the seminar was the crisis in Syria. The CMDR COE experts discussed issued related to the chronology of the crisis; the increased influx of refugees to neighbouring countries and Bulgaria; the positions of NATO, the UN and EU; the involvement of international humanitarian organisations etc.
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Visualizing Implications of Climate Change on Military Activities and Relationships was conductedOn 11-12 December 2013, the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence (CMDR COE) co-hosted together with US European Command (USEUCOM) and the US embassy in Bulgaria the workshop Visualizing Implications of Climate Change on Military Activities and Relationships. The opening remarks were given by the Deputy Minister of Defence of Bulgaria, Mr. Ivan Ivanov, who welcomed the participants and underlined the importance of the topics that the workshop focused on.
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