The kick-off meeting of the SGE was organised on 22 September 2014 in Bern, Switzerland as a side-event of the OIE 26th Conference of the OIE regional Commission for Europe, to take advantage of the combined presence of Delegates and representatives of FAO, OIE and the EC. The meeting was chaired by Dr B. Van Goethem (EC/DG SANCO) in his capacity as President of the GF-TADs for Europe Steering Committee.

A new initiative called Standing Group of Experts on African swine fever in the Baltic and Eastern Europe region (hereafter referred as ‘SGE’) was set up under the GF-TADs umbrella to build up a closer cooperation among countries affected by African swine fever (ASF) and thereby, address the disease in a more collaborative and harmonised manner across the Baltic and Eastern Europe sub-region.