WARSAW, March 6 (RIA Novosti) - Polish, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech defense ministers on Wednesday signed a letter of intent to form a battle group with soldiers from the Visegrád countries, which is to be a part of the European Union Rapid Reaction Force, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said.

The agreement was signed during the Visegrád Group (V4) summit in Warsaw, also attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

The Visegrád battle group will have 3,000 servicemen, including 1,200 contributed by Poland.

Siemoniak said this is the first step toward promoting military cooperation in Central Europe.

“Multilateral cooperation in the security and defense areas is especially relevant today, as many countries are cutting their defense spending,” he said.

The V4 defense ministers decided to form the battle group in May 2011, agreeing that their armed forces should hold regular exercises in conjunction with the NATO Response Force.

V4 was established in 1991, with all of its members joining the EU in May 2004. It aims to “contribute to building European security architecture” based on effective cooperation and coordination within the existing European and transatlantic institutions, according to the V4 policy statement.