The National University of Public Service hosted an academically and strategically high profile NATO workshop between 6-8 November 2018.
The Allied Command Transformation (ACT) of NATO - which maintains excellent relationship with NUPS - held both its Strategic Foresight Analysis and Framework for Future Alliance Operations workshop at the Ludovika Campus.
The event took place at the Educational Centre of the Ludovika Campus and it was opened by col. Tibor Szabó, strategic analyst of the Allied Command Transformation. Dr. Györgyi Nyikos, Vice-Rector for International Affairs welcomed the guests on behalf of the National University of Public Service. The Vice-Rector highlighted the good relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the University and she further added that it is an honour to host the meeting of experts working on future defence strategies. In her opening speech, Dr. Nyikos accentuated that the place of the workshop is ideal from a scientific perspective as in the past Ludovika Academy represented for a very long time the centre of Hungarian military sciences and officer training.
The last opening speech was delivered by Dr. Csaba Vezekényi, Deputy State Secretary for Defence Policy. On behalf of the Ministry of Defence - the Hungarian organizers of the event - he presented to the audience Hungary’s role within NATO as Hungarian soldiers take part in several allied missions and tasks year by year. In his speech he described the successes as well as the mid- and long term development goals of the Zrínyi 2026, defence and military forces development programme. He also underlined that the programme contains the most comprehensive military reform plan over the past two decades and it modernizes the capabilities of the Hungarian Defence Forces in line with NATO requirements.
After the opening session, a series of keynote presentations took place, followed by thematic workshops in the afternoon of the first day, where security and military experts discussed the potential security challenges and the possible ways to respond to them.
The Allied Command Transformation is one of the key pillars of the Organization since it is the centre of strategic planning which aims to maintain the peaceful future of the member states and to overcome the challenges they may face. When the former Supreme Allied Commander Transformation of NATO, Denis Mercier visited Hungary in 2017, he also held a lecture at NUPS.