It is announced that a Framework Agreement between the “ATHENA” Funding Mechanism of the E.U and the Athens Multinational Sealift Coordination Centre of the HNDGS (AMSCC/HNDGS) was signed on October 29th 2007. The said Agreement regards services of Military/Defence nature to be provided by the AMSCC in the field of EU sealifts.
   
The AMSCC was established in November 2004. Its mission is to:
    • Transmit the users request for ship chartering to the National   Marine Transport Department of the Ministry of Mercantile Marine in order that the Department can hold a bidding competition according to its operation regulations.
    • Upon users request to monitor ships route from the port of loading to the destination port.
   
The aforementioned services will comply with the requirements stemming from the International commitments of Greece to NATO, the EU, the UN and other International Organizations as well as the states participating in the operations launched following UNSC orders. 
 
The ATHENA funding Mechanism   was established in February 2004 by the E.U. Its mission is to fund common expenditure of the EU concerning fields of Military and Defence applications.

Italy was the first state to cooperate with the AMSCC in the field of Strategic Sealift by signing a MOU in April 2005, followed by Slovenia and the Czech Republic in April 2007. Finally, in September 2007, NATO/SHAPE and AMSCC signed MOU/TA.

 

                                          LTC Charalambos  Laloussis
                                                HNDGS Spokesman