Financial management in the process of planning for deployment of the Serbian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces' members to multinational operations

Abstract

It is now three years since the model of the program budgeting has been applied to financial assets allocated from the budget of the Republic of Serbia to the financial plan of the Ministry of Defense. Such an approach has managed to inspire deliberations at the strategic political and strategic military level on the prerequisites and measures that need to be taken in order to enable more rational spending of financial assets, and thus raise effectiveness and efficiency of MoD and SAF members' contribution to EU-led missions to a higher level. In order to fulfill the ambitions projected by the Long-Term Plan and Development of the Defense System of the Republic of Serbia, the number of UN and EU-led operations and the number of MoD and SAF members participating in them have increased year after year. The military budget reductions will additionally aggravate the fulfillment of the set objectives, making the financial aspect of planning the involvement of MoD and SAF forces in multinational operations and their actual engagement more significant. Optimal models for calculating the cost price of MoD and SAF members' participation in multinational operations need to be found, and the factors influencing the cost price of national contingent contribution to multinational operations need to be determined, bearing in mind the national legislation and the practice of functioning in the international environment within the area of operations.