At an official ceremony in Sofia yesterday, NATO unveiled its integration unit of the Alliance forces in Bulgaria. The ceremony was attended by Bulgaria’s President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Rossen Plevneliev, Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov, deputy assistant of the Secretary-General of Political Affairs and Security Policy, James Appathurai.

The integration center will be in charge of the command and control at the battalion level. It will carry out training of formations and will maintain facilities and equipment in the event of crisis. As part of the structure of NATO forces, the personnel will be multinational and will be provided on a rotating basis. It is envisaged that the number of employees reaches 41 people, of which 20 Bulgarians.

Besides Sofia, similar ceremonies were held simultaneously in the capitals of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Romania. The head of state cited this fact as an "unequivocal expression of the commitment and solidarity of the Alliance for the Protection of all members”.

"These centers will be the link between national and allied troops in conducting joint exercises and training, as well as in logistics and infrastructure provision for the deployment of NATO forces with a very high degree of readiness in emergency situations threatening the security and territorial integrity of member states on the Eastern flank, including Bulgaria," President Plevneliev said.

In his speech the Bulgarian Head of State noted the importance of the new centers in the changed situation in Europe:

"The actions of Russia in eastern Ukraine, the illegal annexation of the Crimea, the frozen yet continuing conflicts near our borders, the imminent threat of terrorist groups such as Islamic State and others give additional weight to our common efforts to protect our sovereignty and democratic statehood by developing capabilities for reliable deterrence of threats of any kind. We will strongly oppose any plan to achieve instability, frozen conflicts and destabilization, but we guarantee peace only with our determination to resist any destructive action”, Plevneliev stated.

The decision to create these NATO Force Integration Units (NFIUs) in member countries of the Alliance was taken at the summit of NATO in Wales in September 2014.

In the words of NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs James Appathurai NATO seeks to confront no country, but the need for opening such units has increased due to growing instability in neighboring regions:

In a statement broadcast live from Vilnius, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that the opening of new centers is a step towards greater security:

English version Rossitsa Petcova