Slovenia made a commitment to carry out part of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) training during the Slovenian EU Council Presidency, specifically the regular training for Module 5 of the ESDP High-Level Course (HLC). Under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence and the Slovenian Armed Forces, the fifth (and final) module will be run between 7 and 11 April 2008 in Ljubljana. This module deals with the future of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

At the end of Module 5 which will run from 11 to 13 April 2008, a meeting of the graduates or alumni from all four HLC programmes carried out so far will be convened. A short (two-day) refresher programme for them is being organised with the participation of the General Secretariat of the EU Council. The topic of this (first) meeting is ‘The Future of the ESDP after the Lisbon Treaty’, the aim of the alumni seminar being to strengthen the common European security culture. The alumni seminar is the first meeting of the participants of all the high-level courses so far (and is being organised for them alone). Outside the purely professional matters (topical ESDP issues), social networking is also important and should make a special contribution to creating a common European security culture.

The European Security and Defence College (ESDC) was established in 2005 and operates in cooperation with the national States and education and research institutions of the EU Member States in the field of security and defence. The ESDP high-level programme is intended for senior officers (with the rank of colonel or above) and civilian officials (at a comparable level) in the EU Member States who work primarily in the area of ESDP in national structures or in the EU institutions.

Objectives are currently pursued through training in three standard formats:

• the high-level course (strategy), one course per academic year;
• the orientation course (implementation), a one-week training course normally held in Brussels, several courses per academic year;
• the orientation course for public relations staff.

In the 2007/08 academic year, four modules were carried out: in Brussels (Belgium), Lisbon (Portugal), Brno (Czech Republic) and Tartu (Estonia).