Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) funding for activities sponsored by the Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial during fiscal years 1999 and 2000 and the sources of this funding.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD funded about $739,000 in activities sponsored by the Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial from October 1998 through February 2000; (2) the largest and most recent approved expenditure, $500,000, was to fund use of an information management system by members of the Ministerial who are also members of the Partnership for Peace program; (3) in 1994, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started the Partnership for Peace program, a cooperative effort for non-NATO-member countries, to promote democracy, expand cooperation, and strengthen relationships between NATO and non-NATO-member countries; (4) the remaining $239,000 was used to transport eligible Ministerial members which are part of the Partnership for Peace program, as requested by the Ministerial, to DOD-sponsored planning seminars in Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Macedonia and to support Partnership for Peace program members' participation in a civil-military emergency preparedness workshop hosted by Bulgaria for the Ministerial; (5) because DOD has indicated that it will fund some future Ministerial member participation in U.S. European Command exercises, further U.S. financial support is likely, but DOD has not determined the timing and amounts of such support; (6) all funds spent to date came from DOD appropriations made available to facilitate participation in the Partnership for Peace program; and (7) according to a DOD official, DOD makes determinations on a case by case basis on whether activities requested by the Ministerial are eligible for funding under the Partnership for Peace Program.