The official Kick-off meeting of the EU Civilian Training initiative (EUCTI) project took place on 11 March 2021. The meeting welcomed eight project partners as well as representatives of EU structures, OSCE African Union, UN and EU CSDP missions. The meeting provided a platform for intense knowledge exchange through past and present experiences in the field of civilian crisis management and cooperation strategies that will provide guidance for the project.
The EUCTI project, co-funded by the European Commission through under Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI.2), Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, Conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and crisis preparedness component. The overall budget of the project is 2,5 million EUR. The EUCTI project consortium consists of eight partners: Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC), EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations from Belgium, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) from Italy, Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) from Germany, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) from Sweden and CEP from Slovenia as its coordinator. All consortium partners participated previously in the Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civilians Crisis Management (ENTRi) activities and the EUCTI will draw on this experience.
The kick-off meeting was opened by the welcome speech of Markko Kallonen, Head of the EUCTI Secretariat, and Katja Geršak, Executive Director of Centre for European Perspective.
It is envisaged that action will be implemented in collaboration and coordination with the EU Civilian Training Group (EUCTG) and its National Training Experts as well as with the European Security and Defence College (ESDC).