Prague/Brussels, Jan 25 (CTK) – Czech Brigadier General Frantisek Micanek has been elected dean of the prestigious NATO Defense College in Rome, Jan Sulc, spokesman for the general staff of the Czech military, told CTK yesterday.
Micanek was selected by representatives from the Alliance’s member countries within the permanent session of the NATO Military Committee.
The committee has been headed by General Petr Pavel, former Czech chief of staff, since last year.
Micanek, 52, now heads the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies of Defence University in Brno.
Micanek told CTK that he has long specialised in defence planning, security policy and direction of resources and that he considers his election as dean to be a great challenge.
Micanek will be subordinate to the school’s commander who has been Polish Major General Janusz Bojarski since June 2014.
The mission of the college is to train officers in ranks higher than the lieutenant colonel, NATO and EU countries’ diplomats and employees of the EU countries’ defence ministries.
“The school prepares these people for operation in multinational military staffs with focus on the exchange of information and the sharing of experience,” Micanek said.
He joined the military in 1988 and spent most of his professional life with the anti-aircraft defence forces. Later he worked in the defence forces planning section of the Defence Ministry which he headed for about two years from August 2011.
Micanek was deployed within SFOR in Bosnia at the end of the 1990s. He worked at the NATO Defense College in 2009-11 as department director. In May 2012 he was promoted to brigadier general and in June 2013 he retired.
Sulc said Micanek will replace in Rome Daria Daniels Skodnik of Slovenia whose three-year term ends this year.
