History

At the meeting in Brussels October 2010, initiated by United States of America (USA), it was discussed how to enhance Balkan regional military medical activity. The outcome was that USA and Kingdom of Norway would support establishment of an assessment group together with Serbia and Macedonia with the aim to assess and develop a concept, and identify medical operational regional capabilities for a Balkan Medical Task Force (BMTF). 

At the South East Europe Military Medical conference in Belgrade in April 2011, co-chaired by Norway, Serbia and the USA, all West Balkan countries supported the idea for the establishment of a medical task force. As a result Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia (hereafter referred to as the West Balkan countries) have signed the mandate for the assessment group and have dedicated permanent representatives to the group.

During the period of December 2010 – April 2013, the assessment group developed a Concept for Balkan Medical Task Force. This document becomes a foundation for establishing organizational structure of Balkan Medical Task Force. 

Following the guidance’s from the Concept in January 2014 all BMTF member countries established the BMTF Steering Board and the BMTF Standing Organization. They had the prefix “pre” until the International Agreement was signed by all member countries.

Since January 2014 the pre-Steering Board (pSB), pre-Standing Organization (pSO) and Legal Working Group (Legal representatives from all member countries) had regular meetings on which they produced necessary operational documents for BMTF activation.

The result of this work was the creation of the International Agreement between all member countries which was signed by all participating nations.