Mission training, exercises, courses and all the other activities necessary to prepare military staff for their job – all these would not be possible without sufficient financial resources. Therefore, from 22 to 24 November 2011, representatives of the Budget and Finance G-8 Divisions supported by the Training & Exercise G-7 Divisions from all Graduate Readiness Forces Headquarters located in Europe were doing their best to defend their budgets against the cautious eyes of financial representatives from the ministries of defence from almost all NATO countries.
Every year the so-called “Collocated Senior Resources Committee Meeting” (SRC MTG) gathers financial people responsible for the multinational budgets of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), EUROCORPS, 1st (German/Netherlands) Corps, NATO Deployable Corps-Greece, NATO Rapid Deployable Corps -Italy, NATO Rapid Deployable Corps -Turkey, Rapid Reaction Force-France, NATO Rapid Deployable Corps-Spain and Multinational Corps Northeast. This year Multinational Corps Northeast hosted the meeting in Baltic Barracks, Szczecin, for almost 60 participants – military staff responsible for training & exercise cycles, financial controllers setting a “monetary ceiling” of funding these activities and, finally, national representatives who check on the expenditures and say “yes” or “no” to the proposed budgets of a respective corps.
During the meeting each corps headquarters presented a report on how their budgets were expended and asked for the approval of the next year’s budget. Beyond focusing on the immediate future, national representatives were also informed about planned exercises and activities – “battle rhythm” – for the next four years and the Medium Term Financial Plan 2013 – 2016 (MTFP): the anticipated budget required to fund these activities.
“It was a very good conference; we have reached our goals,” said Brigadier General Antonio Grieco from the Italian General Staff. Also Mr Vlaimir Mensik from the Czech Ministry of Defence was fond of the organisation and results of the meeting. „Financial people came here to discuss mainly the next year’s budget, but we also went through this year’s budget execution; we also approved the financial statements from the previous year and, finally, we noted the Medium Term Financial Plan till 2016,” he said. Of course, the results of this conference and expected developments in the future have to go hand in hand with the consciousness of the economic crisis having a direct impact on the financial situation of all the corps, which – as part of NATO Force Structure – are financed by nations contributing to them. “Everybody has monetary and budget constraints,” stressed Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Diaz Arteche from the Spanish Ministry of Defence. “Most of the headquarters are requesting increases and I made the presentation the first day asking them to do imaginative approaches and the best effort they can to cut the requests because this is something that we cannot afford any more,” he added explaining that constant increase in expenses combined with reduced budgets results in the gap between both which becomes bigger and bigger every year. Moreover, he noticed the issue of the overlapping training & exercise calendars according to which most of the headquarters plan to conduct big exercises almost at the same time. Also Mr Mensik underlined the need to take note of national constraints and plan the budgets really carefully.
The Collocated Senior Resources Committee is a very important body which serves as a platform for discussing financial issues common for all headquarters together with national representatives. On the one hand it is a rather strict control body which may impose constraints difficult to match; on the other hand it is a guarantee of balanced and stable development within the NATO Force Structure.
Special thanks to Mrs Joanna Kapela from HQ MNC NE G-8 Division for the contribution to the article.
