Under the terms of a NATO agreement, the fighter aircraft of the Hungarian Air Force will perform air policing over Slovenia and the Baltic states in the near future, Minister of Defence Csaba Hende announced at an event held in Miskolc on Tuesday, November 13.

The Minister of Defence said that the Hungarian Gripens are going to guard Slovenia’s airspace soon, while they are expected to participate in the Baltic Air Policing between 2015 and 2018.

Like Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia do not have air forces. On their accession to NATO, it was decided that instead of the costly development of air forces and procurement of aircraft, Slovenia and the Baltic states would focus on other units of their armed forces and declare them to the North Atlantic Alliance. As the airspaces of these states must be defended and guarded too, this task will be carried out by the aircraft of the Hungarian Air Force, Minister Hende said.

(honvedelem.hu, MTI)