MOD submits Comprehensive Review on SVK Defence 2020 to Government, it is now available to public as unclassified document

Today, the Ministry of Defence has informed the SVK Government of the situation in Defence by submitting the Comprehensive Review on SVK Defence 2020 for consideration. This is the second time that the annual document, which describes improvements as well as the existing shortages in Defence, has been made available to the public and is downloadable from the MOD website at Komplexné hodnotenie obrany. In the interest of promoting openness and transparency in the field of State defence, the MOD has submitted it to the Government as an unclassified document.

Deputy Defence Minister Marian Majer said: “The possibility for our citizens to familiarize themselves in detail with the defence review is seen by the present MOD leadership, unlike the previous MOD leaderships, as very important and much needed. In this way, we want to publicly present the advances in improving the state of SVK Defence and openly point to the serious shortages we had inherited as a result of long-term neglect in this field and hence justify important measures that need to be taken in the coming period.” Deputising for Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď, Mr Majer introduced the document to the Government.

Deputy Defence Minister Majer emphasised that in 2020 the MOD leadership had done the maximum to deliver the defence of the State and to develop the Armed Forces, and that they look to continue this positive trend. As part of last year's successes, he highlighted the progress achieved in the transparent and financially responsible modernisation of Armed Forces equipment, in particular, the procurement process of new 3D air defence radar systems, the soldier clothing modernisation project, and the step-change in replacing tracked armoured fighting vehicles. He reminded that the MOD had made historically highest investments of almost €100 million in Defence infrastructure improvements, as well as supplying €100 million worth of material to the SVK Armed Forces and spending the historically highest amount of funding on purchases of military clothes worth €17.8 million, which accounts for an increase of €5.4 million (44 %) against 2019.

Among the successes in 2020 were the new strategic documents – the SVK Defence Strategy and the SVK Security Strategy. These came to replace the strategic documents of 2005, which fell short of reflecting today's security environment. Additionally, last year Slovakia came close to reaching the 2 per cent GDP spending goal and NATO's Annual Report was made available to the public for the first time.

Success in the cooperation between the SVK MOD and the SVK defence industry was high, as evidenced by the participation of SVK defence companies in the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP). On purchases through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), there was a 50 per cent increase in the number of orders for the SVK defence industry, amounting to €12.6 million against the previous year.

The document also lists major shortcomings. Among them are the readiness of the SVK Armed Forces, the stagnating processes in defence planning, and the provision of State defence support. The latter was caused by lower funding, which slightly fell from €4.5 million in 2019 to over €3.8 million in 2020. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the downturn in training activities, tasks were performed to high standards, and this equally applied to international missions and operations and domestic crisis management. The SVK Armed Forces proved their 24/7 readiness to carry out tasks during the largest logistics operation codenamed Op Shared Responsibility in Slovakia.

It is also noteworthy that for the past three consecutive years the number of citizens recruited into the SVK Armed Forces has been higher than the number of Service leavers. Thanks to this, the total strength of the SVK Service Personnel rose from 77.1% in early 2020 to 78.4% in late 2020. The document admits that the Armed Forces are below their target strength, because there is an existing limit to manpower levels as set by the Ministry of Finance.