site.btaNATO Centre of Excellence Marks 9th Anniversary

The  Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence (CMDR COE) celebrated its ninth anniversary on Friday. Among those present at the ceremony were the Chief of Defence Admiral Emil Eftimov and Deputy Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov, who is also nominated for caretaker Minister of Defence. 

“Our role is to train decision-makers and our commanders so that they can act adequately in the event of disasters and accidents,“ Director Orlin Nikolov told journalists. He gave as a successful example from the work of the Center with the Covid-19 pandemic. “When the National Crisis Headquarters was established, the Centre supported it. We predicted exactly how the crisis would develop,” Nikolov explained. 

“We do not act during the disaster or crisis itself, but before and after it. We are working with the Council of Ministers and will try to make new training on sustainability of management to prepare not only the Ministries of Defense and of Interior, but also other ministries to better interact and manage crises and disastersm,” Nikolov said. 

The focus of the Centre in the future should be on the sustainability of cognitive war, said Admiral Eftimov and thanked the Centre for its efforts. Atanas Zapryanov said that the centre is one of the leaders in the fight against natural disasters. “The Centre provides expertise not only for Bulgaria but also for NATO. The center has room to develop. We will fill it with personnel, there is not so much deficit here as elsewhere,” Zapryanov said. 

The Centre was established on August 28, 2013 by the sponsor countries Poland and Greece and Bulgaria as a Participating Nation with the signing of the necessary memoranda of understanding between the Ministry of Defense of Bulgaria, the Ministry of National Defence of Greece, the Minister of National Defence of Poland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, the Ministry of Defence of Hungary and the Allied Command Transformation. On March 31, 2015, CMDR COE won the status of NATO's 21st Centre of Excellence and was activated as an international military organization on the territory of Bulgaria under Article XIV of the Paris Protocol.