Following the Commander Assembly of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic, President Kiska held a speech on defence and security commitments:

“Together with the Defence Minister, the HQ of the Armed Forces and several dozen generals and officers, we evaluated the exercise year of 2016. As you know, this is what we traditionally do each year at this time.

At the outset, I may tell you what I have told behind a closed door: that I do not doubt the patriotism of our professional soldiers and that I do not doubt in the ability of their absolute majority to do their best to fulfil their tasks on an everyday basis. I asked the officer corps to pass my thanks to the over twelve thousand professional soldiers, each of them along their own line of command.

They the spread good reputation of the Slovak Republic in the missions abroad. When at home, they do whatever they can. Yet – unfortunately – with obsolete gear and equipment, which frequently is missing for simple operations. I wish to thank them for helping the civilians whenever needed.

Over the two and a half year period in the Slovak President´s office I had conversations with hundreds of our professional soldiers – in missions but much more at home. Often times I had the opportunity to see the equipment that they use which – unfortunately – is older than the soldiers in service.  Living and working with that required genuine belief in their own professional ability. Many times we share sad stories involving personal equipment.  Our soldiers´ life is not easy.

Today I listened to the exercise year evaluation by the Chief of the General Staff and I can see parallels between his report and the last year´s NATO evaluation as of mid-2016. There is nothing to mask.  We have a problem. We do have a problem… and we have had it for a long time.

In my New Year´s address I spoke of the year 2017 as of a year of truth and I explicitly mentioned security. Whether it will be possible to speak about security only when terrorists commit an attack somewhere. I said that I would really consider it very beneficial to ask every politician frightening people this year by any kind of threat if and how they enforce the upgrading plans of our security force.

The thing is that our armed forces are not in a good shape and that we are behind with most our commitments including the biggest one – preparation of our mechanised brigade. We had ourselves planned to have it completed in 2010. It is essential to our defence capability, it is our key commitment to our allies and our intended contribution to the shared security. It does not look good at all this year either – with seven years of dela

Another commitment of ours: In agreement with the Prime Minister and the key members of the Government, we agreed two years ago that we would end the defence budget nose-dive and in the first phase up to 2020, we would raise defence expenditure to 1.6 % of GDP. Unfortunately, I have to admit not to be aware of any credible plan allowing us to make the commitment a reality. Not the 2 % which is our standing commitment but not even the 1.6 % to which we have committed ourselves by 2020.

We are aware of it. The Alliance has been pointing it out, saying that budget would become an essential topic of NATO discussions this year.

The discussions that every single Member State has given their fair share on defence. So that some countries would not be free riders any more. So that the foundation of common defence remains valid: all for one, one for all.

And let´s not pretend: this is going to be an essential topic in the discussion about European defence capabilities within the European Union.

I can hear determination, I can hear ambitions even in my country to strengthen our European capabilities and European cooperation. I find it highly desirable and necessary. No matter if it is NATO or any other shared defence project – each of them will require to genuinely fulfil our commitments. It has unfortunately been several years now that we keep on promising and fail to adhere to our commitments.

We are not doing well with communication concerning our security aimed at our own people or our allies either. One cannot avoid providing information concerning commitments or sweep unpopular topics under carpet.

In simple terms: we are cheating on our striking power. We are cheating on our citizens because we are not telling them the truth about the real condition of our security and of our army. We are cheating on our soldiers to whom we keep on promising but our promises remain only words.

Today we simply fail to fulfil our plans and commitments at a desired pace… and I fail to see any willingness to change that situation.

That is why I asked the minister to exhort and be persistent when presenting these issues to the Government. It will be specifically up to him to attract the attention of both the Government and the public to the issues and to raise the spirit of responsibility in the Government members concerning the question of our security and defence.”