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NATO chief joins meeting of EU defence ministers in Hungary

Other News Materials 25 February 2011 12:44 (UTC +04:00)

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton were on Friday due in Hungary to participate in an informal meeting of European defence ministers, DPA reported.

Hungary is hosting the meeting as part of its six-month presidency of the European Union.

The "most vigorous" debate is likely to be about operation Althea, the EU's military mission to the unstable Balkan state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary's defence ministry said Thursday.

Also on the agenda is Atalanta, the EU naval operation off the coast of Somalia, with the focus on "pooling and sharing" of military capabilities.

With regards to the "increasingly intolerable" problem of piracy in that area, Hungary's Defence Minister Csaba Hende said that the "broadening of operations" could be discussed, along with the issue of how to bring captured pirates to justice.

Hende was talking to reporters prior to a working dinner with his EU counterparts Thursday evening at which he said the ongoing situation in Libya would "very probably" be discussed, although it did not feature on the official agenda and no policy decision was likely.

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