An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir November 2015 www.dfmagazine.ie 16 | MILITaRy PRESS REPoRT AND PhoToS by SGT WAyNE FITzGERALD T he European Military Press Association (EMPA) is an association for editors and directors of military peri- odicals published in Europe. Established in 1977, the EMPA supports its members by providing a point of contact, offering opportunities to exchange information, and promot- ing understanding of security policy issues and knowledge of armed forces. The Association currently has members in 20 nations: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany, Neth- erlands, belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Slo- venia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania and Sweden. The EMPA held its 36th annual congress in Berlin from 29th September to 1st October, which was attended by 68 partici- pants from 17 countries, including two representatives from An Cosantóir. As part of the congress the EMPA incorporated a number of visits and briefings through which we learned much about Germany's armed forces and their command and governance. Our first visit was to the Bundestag (Parliament) in the Reich- stag building, where Wilfried Lorenz, a member of the ruling CDU party and former military officer, briefed us on Germany's defence policy. He told us that "The Bundeswehr [Germany's armed forces] is an army of the parliament, and needs the full support of the parliament to mandate for missions. There has been no mission so far that has been rejected by this process." He also told us that this pro- cess was under review. Speaking of Germany's contribution to European security he said: "We have benefited from the protec- tion of the Allies, and now it's time for us to give some- thing back." Mr Lorenz also spoke about how he served in the army during the Cold War, which the West won without firing a bullet. A recent development has seen the process by which the Bundestag man- dates overseas missions changed to allow for very quick action when a mission needs to be established without delay, such as the emergency evacuation of German nationals from a conflict zone. Many other NATO countries are looking at similar procedures to allow for a rapid response to situa- tions such as the current refugee crisis. While in the Bundestag we also got the opportunity to speak briefly with Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, Germany's first female minister of defence, who is the commander-in-chief of the 185,000-strong Bundeswehr in peacetime (the Chancellor takes over in wartime). The next day we visited the second residence of the Federal Ministry of Defence (FMoD) in Berlin, which has 900 military and 1,300 civilian employees. (The head- quarters is based in Bonn.) Col GS Thierman welcomed us to the FMoD before speaking to us about public information. "Young people don't read papers anymore," he told us, "so we have to target them. They want to consume bite size media for their mobiles, so we focus on our YouTube channel, which is more successful than the US Marines' channel!" The Bundeswehr has revamped its website so that it is accessible on all platforms and is in the process of com- bining all its weekly papers and monthly magazine into one publication. He told us: "Apps are too costly, so we focus on web-based browser information and products." Lt Col Martin Werneke then briefed us on the develop- ment of Germany's current White Paper. "We will go into the editing phase and inter-ministerial consultation by the end of October," he said, "and the White Paper will be published before the next general election, which is due before the end of 2016." Prior to that they will have 10 expert-panel workshops and will allow comments to be made on a special website during the participation phase, before it is adopted by cabinet. Next we heard from Col Manfred Baumgartner, 2i/c of the Bundeswehr Territorial Command, based in Julius Leber Bks, a very large military installation in Berlin, with 23,126 personnel. Co-operation EMPA Best Photo 2015 by Raimundas Kaunietis (Lithuania)

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