The Special Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact, Bodo Hombach will attend the informal meeting of Southeast Europe’s Defence Ministers (SEDM) in Thessaloniki on 6 June with a twofold message. He will strongly advocate that Yugoslavia be included in this forum and, secondly, he will inform the meeting about funds raised within the Stability Pact for a Communications and Information System for the Multinational Peace Force in Southeast Europe – also known as SEE Brigade (SEEBRIG) – based in Plovdiv (Bulgaria).

Hombach will also update the ministers on the preparations for Stability Pact Working Table III on Security, which will take place in Zagreb on 11-13 June.

SEEBRIG was founded on 26 September 1998 with an agreement signed at a SEDM meeting in Skopje. It became operational on 1 May 2001 and may be employed on a case by case basis for UN or OSCE mandated conflict prevention and peace support operations.

The first meeting of SEDM process took place in Albania in 1996. It is currently chaired by Greece. Participating countries include Albania, Bulgaria, FYROM, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy and USA. These countries are also members of SEEBRIG, except for USA, Slovenia and Croatia, who are observers.