Minister of Defence Dragan Sutanovac said today that the abolition of compulsory military service and the transition to the professional composition of the armed forces will not threaten the functioning of the defence system.

Sutanovac told the Beta news agency that there are approximately 1.7 million citizens who have served military service and that there are those who are still willing to, if necessary, put on the uniform.

He reiterated that there was no threat to the defence system because of the transition to professional army composition.

The Minister said that in the process of professionalisation there will be some problem that we have not encountered so far, but Serbia will be able to use the best practices of other countries.

Speaking on the budget of the Ministry of Defence in 2011, Sutanovac said that RSD 72 billion is a large sum viewed from the government budget as a whole, but that from the perspective of the defence system this is a relatively small sum.

The allocated funds will fully enable the execution of all tasks of the Army and will also enable a step towards the modernisation of training, he stressed, adding that priority would be given to Air Force.

A large sum is needed for the purchase of new aircraft, which is why we are considering the possibilities of taking commodity loans or to provide funds through budget savings, he said.

The year 2011 will be a historic year also because first women officers will complete the Military Academy and we will also have the first female military pilots in the history of the Serbian Air Force.

Speaking about the plans of the defence industry, he announced that this year, attention will be given to the military health care since Serbia applied to build a military hospital in Libya, which would be modelled after the Military Medical Academy (VMA) in Belgrade.

Together with some EU member countries and the Russian Federation, we will strive to get a job of repair and modernisation of Kuwaiti M-84 tanks, that were in the late eighties and early nineties produced in the former Yugoslavia, he said.

Sutanovac announced that members of the Serbian Army will again take part in air defence trainings in the Bulgarian polygon Shabla.

Members of the Serbian Army will continue to participate in peacekeeping missions, and we hope is that one of them will be under the leadership of the EU in 2011, concluded Minister of Defence.