24. 04. Warsaw. „I feel honoured to host so many distinguished guests in Warsaw”. – said Polish Land Forces Commander LtGen Zbigniew Głowienka opening three-day session of Land Forces Commanders from European countries.

„I would like to welcome especially warm among the members and friends of Finabel the Commander of the Land Forces of the Czech Republic BrigGen Stefan Kaleta who today officially joined our group as a rightful member. I am also very glad from the presence of our friend from Latvia Col. Dzintars Rog who participates in the meeting as an observer. – LtGen Zbigniew Głowienka said.

Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Defence for Defence Policy Zbigniew Włosowicz PhD met with participants of Finabel on the first day of the session. The host of the meeting expressed his satisfaction that enlarging the Finabel group on one more country – the Czech Republic took place during Poland’s Presidency in Finabel. As he emphasized – it was one of the priorities of Polish Presidency.

Summing up the effects of work of the Principal Military Experts Committee its chief MajGen Philippe Martin thanked LtGen Głowienka for promoting the idea of Finabel in international environment. As he stressed: “Thanks to efforts of particular nations, skillfully supported by our today’s hosts we managed to establish closer cooperation with European Defence Agency and European Union Military Committee. At present we act as an equal partner of both organizations.”

Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Defence for Defence Policy Zbigniew Włosowicz PhD stressed that making permanent effort within matters concerning European and world security is very important. “Security is not something given us forever. That is why we have to take actions in order to guarantee it. This is the role of the Army Chiefs of Staff Committee Finabel, besides the EU and NATO. It is a tool for strengthening security in all its dimensions.”

PRESS SPOKESMAN
LAND FORCES COMMAND

LtCol Tomasz SZULEJKO

From 13 to 15 April 2011 there was the annual meeting of Land Forces Commanders’ Committee FINABEL. This year it was particularly important to our country, since  Lieutenant General Zbigniew Głowienka became the chairman of this  assembly.

The presidency in the organization has not only symbolic but also prestigious meaning. FINABEL, gathering sixteen Land Forces Commanders, is also a perfect place to exchange views and elaborate particular solutions which aim is to improve multinational military cooperation.

This year's meeting had one particular dimension for Poland, since Land Forces Commander,  LTG Zbigniew Głowienka became the chairman of the commanders’ Committee of Main Military Committee for the next twelve months. During the formal meeting he was handed the presidency symbols, the FINABEL flag and its ‘golden book’ from the present president – the italian general Giuseppe Valotto. „Taking over the presidency in such an important organization gathering Land Forces Commanders from 16 countries is a great honour and distinction both for me and my country.  During my presidency I will try to promote FINABEL organization and inspire particular teams and working groups in their work”, as general Zbigniew Głowienka emphasised while speaking to the participants of the meeting.

Among priorities which the Polish side planned for the time of our presidency the New chairman mentioned inter alia: elaboration of the formula of expanding the FINABEL Committee about new membering countries, for example, inviting countries to participation in workshops of permanent and temporary working groups in the role of the observer or active member (with particular emphasis on the Baltic countries); initiation creation of a new working group  developing the subject of logistic differences in equipment and armament of „new” and „old” NATO members in the perspective of their participation in creating European Union Battle Groups. Moreover, the Polish side’s aim is to recommend cooperation with Ukraine at expert level, after foregoing legal sanctioning of this initiative. Great emphasis will be put on FINABEL promotion as the organization and its successes on the wide international scene.

The meeting was a perfect occassion to discuss the results of work of expert groups involved in the widely understood subject of counteracting to improvised explosive devices and the legal questions of the participation of the military in overseas missions.

Poland has been a FINABEL member since 2006. In this year's meeting participated representatives of 16  Member States and Czech and Hungarian delegations, as observers, since both these countries are applying to became the member of the organization. The Polish delegation, apart from Land Forces Commander,  consisted of the Deputy Chief of Staff of Land Forces, brigadier general Marek Mecherzyński, the Chief of Planning and Development Directorate G-5, colonel Grzegorz Madej, Chief of International Cooperation Department of Land Forces Command colonel Jarosław Mokrzycki.

FINABEL is an organization joining Land Forces Commanders. It was established in 1953. The acronym means the first letters of the names of establishing countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. At present the Member States are: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland (since 2006), the Slovak Republic, Cyprus, Romania and Finland.

FINABEL is a European forum of exchanging military expertise which are based on the following rules:

• Full equality of Member States;
• Systematic searching for consensus in decision elaboration;
• Informal meetings: FINABEL does not depend their action on international contracts; the committee is a kind of „tool” completely to Land Forces Commanders’ disposal which may be created and used to the task realisation according to their priority;
• The authonomy: it results from informal character and is an occassion to oryginal reflexion, without being dependent to any organization.

The Committee organization is as follows:

a. Committee of Land Forces Commanders  (COS) – once a year there is a meeting in each  Member States in sequence; it is an organ giving directions of action and giving directives to FINABEL functioning;

b. Committee of Prominent Military Experts (PME) – it meets twice a year; it consists of officers in the rank of division general to colonel; the main tasks of the committee are the analisis and presentation of directives of COS as particular missions and tasks for working groups as well as monitoring their work;

c. Assistant Group of Prominent Military Experts (APME) – it consists of staff officers being assistants of PME who meet three times a year; they play a key role in FINABEL, and their tasks are:

d. Standing Working Groups (SWG) – are directly subordinate to PME; at the moment there are four groups:

Additionally, there is the possibility of bringing temporary groups into being, it is so called Expert Temporary Group (ETG) to develop faster responses to more complicated questions of Commanders’ Committee. At the moment there are two temporary groups:

e. Coordination Committee (CC) – it consists of chiefs of working groups as well as PME assisstants; they meet once a year and their main tasks are as follows:

f. Permanent Secretariat (PSec) – it is an administrative cell of FINABEL, located in Brussells.

Each of Standing Working Groups concentrates on maximum two studio issues simultaneously. To elaborate studio work there is assigned one of the members of working groups as a pilot of studio work. The sequence of taking the pilot function over the studio work results from the sequence of joining of particular country the working group.

Developed by Jacek Matuszak on the basis of the materials coming from G -5, Land Forces Command.
Translation: MA Katarzyna Misiejuk, Language Training Department, Land Forces Command.

***

Col. Pierre Desjeux - the Head of the Permanent Secretariat of Finabel

Finabel is an international forum made up of the Chiefs of Staff of the Armies of sixteen different European nations. Poland is a member of Finabel since 2006 ; this year Poland has taken over the chairmanship which lasts from April 2011 to April 2012. The aim of Finabel is to develop doctrines, which could later be implemented at the national level. The Committee has just issued recommendations concerning …. and it is up to the nations to decide whether they will implement them.

As it is a forum, there is no political agenda. The Committee is an apolitical and quite informal organization. One of the main goals of Finabel is an change of viewpoints to create a community, to create links and relations between the sixteen nations. Finabel operates according to the principle that a decision is taken provided consensus has been reached and all the nations enjoy equal right to speak, to provide their own advice and to speak freely. Consensus is considered obligatory.

As regards how work is organized, there are three levels of activities. The first one is the most important and it is the Chief of Staff (COS) conference. Poland is going to organize the next Chief of Staff meeting in Warsaw in April 2012. It is a good occasion to have a free discussion among European Chiefs of Staff of the armies who can enjoy an opportunity to talk freely in an informal manner. The second layer is the Principal Military Experts (PME) level, the experts are one- or two-star generals and majority of them occupy the position of Doctrine Centre directors. They can talk about doctrines and decide what course of action to take. At the third level there is the working group level where the delegates in the rank of major and lieutenant colonel discuss and issue studies, which result in conclusions and recommendations sent to the nations in the form of papers and minutes.

Finabel cooperates closely with NATO and EUMS, with the aim of correlating our studies. We have set up a website to exchange and spread information. As far as Finabel enlargement is concerned, the Committee is trying to encourage all the European armies to join us, at the moment, as I have mentioned, there are sixteen member countries, the ultimate objective is to have all the European nations as members. This is one of the main aspects of the job we are doing together with Poland now, to attract the nations, to show them how interesting it is to be a part of Finabel, and what is more, there is no need to bear any costs: a nation just sends delegates to a meeting and benefits from participation as it is a free discussion, everybody is asked to present their own opinions and share the experiences and opinions. That is the reason why Finabel is a very useful organization at this level because of its informal, apolitical and independent way of thinking.

It is the first time that COS of PL LF is the head of Finabel. Polish presidency is very interesting as it coincides with the country’s presidency of European Union, furthermore, because of a particular role Poland plays within the European Union and its relations with its eastern neighbouring countries, it is possible to attempt to achieve synergy and promote Finabel within the European Union as a good opportunity to share experiences at low cost.

The future of the Committee is a good question. Finabel has a lot of potential. One way to exploit the potential is to use Finabel to spread doctrines, exchange viewpoints, to use an opportunity to create a European doctrine. Finabel is the only chance for European military leaders to meet and discuss long term program for land forces. We think that in the majority of operations the use of the land forces or ground forces constitutes about 80% of the forces in operation. So for that reason Finabel has a unique opportunity to establish common understanding between the forces.