The Hungarian Defence Forces, General Staff, Operational Directorate is the staff organization responsible for the intelligence, operations and operational planning at the national military joint strategic (HU General Staff) level (HU GS JS2/JS3/JS5), as well as the supervision of the arms of the army. The main tasks of the organization are as follows:
Legislative Tasks
The Operational Directorate is responsible for the preparation or participation in the preparation of laws and other regulations in the field of its responsibility as well as the control and monitoring of their realization and fulfilment.
This organization has the task of the preparation of the military decisions regarding the state of readiness of the armed forces, mobilization of the national defence assets as well as the declaration of any extraordinary situation.
Coordination Tasks
The Operational Directorate is responsible for the organization and supervision of the coordination and cooperation among the military and administrative organizations of the Ministry of Defence as well as between the General Staff organizations in the field of operations and operations planning. The organization has the right of cooperation with other ministries, governmental bodies and foreign organizations or the same level within its scope of responsibility.
Authorities
The Operational Directorate has the task of the preparation of certain authorities’ decisions in the fields of township development, armed security services of military installations, and certain chamber functions, as well as the supervision of qualification and certification of certain military trainings and educations.
NATO, EU and Other International Tasks
The Operational Directorate is the primarily responsible organization for cooperation with NATO, EU and other foreign military organizations of the same level in the fields of NATO Reaction Forces, EU Battle Group, peace support and other combined joint operations. The Directorate prepares the Memorandums of Understandings, Transfers of Authorities, Force Generation related decisions in cooperation with all the other organizations of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff, as well as the Hungarian Joint Forces Command.
Technical Tasks
The Directorate is responsible with the technical and professional representation and supervision of the different arms of the army regarding the national and international cooperation, planning and operations.
The Operational Directorate has certain control and monitoring tasks: it is responsible for the evaluation of the CHOD-subordinate units in the fields of its main responsibilities. In cooperation with military intelligence organizations the Directorate is responsible for providing intelligence data and analysis to the General Staff and other organizations, as well as regulating the intelligence related tasks and activities of the Hungarian Defence Forces. As the main operations planning body of the General Staff, the Operations Directorate is responsible for the preparation of the Standing Defence Plans, national Contingency Defence Plans, Air Defence organizations and plans, Critical Infrastructure Protection plans and the preparation of the command and control structure of the armed forces of Hungary in peacetime and in all of the crisis situations, including the NATO Article 5 and non-Article 5 operations, as well as the military part of the Host Nation Support.
The organization is tasked with the preparation and operation of the national force protection and state of readiness measures systems as well as the continuous monitoring of the state of readiness of all the military units and installations in Hungary and the Hungarian military contingents abroad.
As the main operational control body of the General Staff, the Operational Directorate is responsible for planning and conducting Crisis Response Operations of Hungary led by the national authorities or under the umbrella of any international organizations or coalitions. As one of the most frequent tasks regarding the national-led Crisis Response Operations the Directorate determines the requirements and elaborates the contingency plans for the military participation to the national disaster relief operations.
Other Tasks
The Operational Directorate is responsible for the preparation, drafting and elaborating the positions and sentiments of the General Staff regarding all the issues raised.
(Ministry of Defence)