Bulgaria to Host South Eastern Europe Simulation Exercise SEESIM 12

October 13, 2011 defpro.com

A conference on the specifications of the computer-assisted exercise of the countries from South Eastern Europe SEESIM 12 is being held in the Boyana Residence. The forum enjoys the participation of over 90 Bulgarian and foreign military and civilian experts in the field of defence. The exercise will take place in Bulgaria in 2012.

Computer-assisted exercises SEESIM (South Eastern Europe Simulation) are part of the initiative of the Ministers of Defence of South Eastern Europe (the SEDM Initiative). They have a two-year preparation cycle, and so far, a total of five such exercises have been held. Bulgaria hosted SEESIM in 2008.

Deputy Minister of Defence Avgustina Tzvetkova delivered a welcoming address for the participants in the conference today, October 11th. She emphasized that the SEESIM exercises under the SEDM initiative are of key importance to the unification of standards in the participating countries with regard to combating humanitarian crises and delivering aid to population in distress in disaster and emergency situations.

The main purpose of SEESIM exercises is to establish and test a system of interrelations and procedures between countries from the region, aimed at facilitating and speeding up the process of requesting and delivering aid in case of natural calamities and other humanitarian disasters.

The countries participating in these exercises are the SEDM Member States, the USA, Sweden, and the observer countries Georgia and Moldova. Some additional structures will take part in the exercise in 2012, among which NATO structures, ACT, JWC, JFTC and NC3A; governmental agencies; and non-governmental organizations. The experiment part of the exercise envisages testing the capacity of the latest advancements in information technology for enhancement of the effectiveness of the training and preparation of civil and military structures from the region with regard to participation in operations on non-military crisis relief, as well as Bulgaria’s proposal for the establishment of a network for training and exercises in South Eastern Europe.

The leader of the group on the preparation and conduct of the exercise in Bulgaria is Brig. Gen. Marin Nachev, Director for Operations and Training.