Category: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Source: NATO

Good afternoon.
We have just concluded a productive meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers.
Our discussions focused on our support for Ukraine.

We all want to stop this war. But the paradox is that the better we prepare for the long haul, the sooner the war can end. Russia must understand that it cannot wait us out.

No final decisions were made today, but we made significant progress on three issues.

First, NATO’s plans to play a greater coordinating role in the provision of equipment and training.

Practically all military aid to Ukraine – 99 percent – comes from NATO Allies.
So, it makes sense that NATO should play a greater role in these efforts.

This will enable us to use the NATO structures to put our support on a firmer footing,
provide more predictability to Kyiv, and address both immediate and longer-term needs.

Secondly, I have proposed that Allies commit to a multi-year financial pledge for Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Allies have provided approximately 40 billion euros worth of military support to Ukraine each year.

We must maintain at least this level of support each year, for as long as necessary.

I have also proposed that Allies should share this burden equitably. This will improve accountability, and give Ukraine the predictability they need to plan for the long term. 

Finally, we discussed Ukraine’s path to NATO membership. Allies agree that Ukraine’s future is in NATO. And we are determined to make progress in charting this path.  Membership will be Ukraine’s ultimate security guarantee. It will ensure a lasting peace;
And provide the stability needed for reconstruction.

Let me add this on Allied support and the question of escalation.

Russia started this war. They annexed Crimea in 2014. And in 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War 2.

Russia is striking hospitals, schools, and shopping malls. Russia is bombing power and water infrastructure. Russia is killing Ukrainian civilians.

Ukraine is defending itself from appalling Russian brutality.

So, let me be clear. Self-defence is not escalation. Self-defence is a fundamental right. It is enshrined in the UN Charter. Ukraine has the right, and the responsibility, to protect its people. And we have the right to help Ukraine uphold its right to self-defence.

Of course, Russia does not like this. At every stage of this war Russia has complained, threatened and sabre-rattled.

Putin wanted to deter NATO Allies from supporting Ukraine. But we are not and we will not be deterred.

Russia is the one attacking. Russia is the one escalating. Most recently by opening a new front in the Kharkiv region. And with waves of new strikes on Ukrainian citizens.

As the war has evolved, our support has evolved. And it will continue to evolve.

I welcome that Allies are providing many different types of assistance. And at the NATO Summit, we will put NATO’s support on a firmer footing for the long haul. 

Source: NATO

NATO Foreign Ministers concluded two days of meetings and events in Prague, Czech Republic on Friday (31 May 2024) with an informal session of the North Atlantic Council. In a meeting chaired by NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, Allies made progress on preparations for the Washington Summit in July and agreed that providing support to Ukraine should remain a top priority.

Source: NATO

On 31st May 2024, the NATO Headquarters hosted the 21st iteration of the bi-annual IMS-EUMS Directors General Conference. Military staffs from NATO HQ and EU hold regular meetings to discuss key topics important for the collaboration between both international organizations.

Source: NATO

(As delivered)

Source: NATO

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: 
Good morning. Welcome to all to this informal NATO foreign ministerial meeting. It’s great to see you all. 
We will address many important issues today: the preparations for the Washington Summit, support to Ukraine, the terms of defence, our partnership with our Asia Pacific partners.  But first of all, we will be welcomed by the host, Foreign Minister Lipavskýf, thank you so much for hosting us. Many thanks to you, to the Czech government for hosting this event, and also the beautiful dinner yesterday. So Jan, please, you have the floor.

Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavský:
Dear Secretary General Jens, dear ministers, dear colleagues, warm welcome to the Černín Palace, the seat of the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
I would like to begin with a sentence that this is the place where the Warsaw Pact, the very symbol of the Cold War, was dissolved. And I’m honoured that Prague has picked up the baton from Berlin and Oslo, and can host our informal meeting at such an important moment. 
For Prague it has been 22 years since the last high-level NATO event was held in Czechia. Since then, many Allies have joined the North Atlantic family and we must ensure that NATO’s doors remain open for new members, including, and especially for, Ukraine. 
As mentioned by Jens, our main objective today is to prepare for the upcoming Anniversary Summit. I expect the Washington Summit to demonstrate the strength of our Alliances and transatlantic bond. In particular, I would like to highlight two important areas. Firstly, the Summit should deliver on aligned deterrence and defence posture, including our ability to effectively counter hybrid threats from Russia and elsewhere, and to help us formulate a credible strategy to the containment of Russia. Because Russia is a threat not only to Ukraine, but to all of us. Secondly, we must identify our support to Ukraine, both immediate—and here I express my gratitude to all that have supported our ammunition initiative—as well as in the mid and long term. And I believe that NATO as such has also a role to play. 
Dear colleagues, dear Jens, thank you for coming and let’s make the most of this inform opportunity. Thank you very much. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
Thank you so much Jan. Thank you again for hosting us. This ends the public part of the meeting, many thanks to the media for joining us at the top of the meeting.

Source: NATO

(As delivered)

Source: NATO

Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană met Cabo Verde’s State Minister of Defence Janine Lelis at NATO Headquarters on Wednesday (29 May 2024) for talks on working toward a partnership between the Alliance and Cape Verde.

Source: NATO

President of the Senate, Ministers, Ambassador Landovský, dear Jakub, thank you so much for your kind words. 
 
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, 
 
First of all, it is a great honour to be here in Prague, to be in the Senate, to be in this beautiful city and in this beautiful building of the Senate. This is an expression of the historic importance of this country and of this city.
And as you all know, this year the Czech Republic is celebrating the 25th anniversary of joining NATO. And that’s a big and important anniversary, not least because that was the beginning of a big transformation of Europe, the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era where NATO and the European Union enlarged and where the Czech Republic and many other countries in the former Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, joined NATO.
 
I was at that time 25 years ago, a very young politician, but I remember very well the discussions and many across the Alliance, were afraid of enlarging, they were afraid that NATO enlargement with countries like the Czech Republic, like Poland, like Hungary, and then all the rest following that, that that was a bit too much for the Alliance, and that it would provoke Russia, the Soviet Union.
 
Then I’m very glad that we ended on the conclusion that that was the right decision to make, and that we actually invited and decided that NATO should have an open door. And the NATO enlargement has been one of the really big successes of NATO, and that’s helped to transform Europe and the Czech Republic. That 25th anniversary is a great example of that. So therefore, it’s an honour to be here today.
 
Then, this year, we also celebrate the 75th anniversary of NATO. 75 years ago, NATO was founded in Washington, and we will meet later on this year, in July, we’ll meet in Washington to celebrate, to mark our 75th anniversary. And that will be a great meeting where we’ll be in the same room as we founded the Alliance 75 years ago. 
 
But it is a responsibility for all of us to ensure that it’s not only celebrations, but also that we are demonstrating that the success of NATO is because we have been able to be united, but also because we have been able to adapt and change when the world is changing. So therefore, we can not only celebrate, we also need to do some hard work at the Summit but not least in the preparations leading up to the Summit. So, we can, once again, show the world that NATO is responding when the challenges are increasing and we now face an even more dangerous world. 
 
Part of those preparations will be the meeting here in Prague, the Foreign Minister Meeting that starts with a dinner tonight and then the formal discussion tomorrow. That will be a critical part of the preparations and hopefully after meeting tomorrow, we will be closer to conclusions, closer to the consensus we need to once again adapt this Alliance.
 
And there are in particular three areas that will be important tomorrow, but also at the Summit in July. And the success of these areas will then define whether we’re able to deliver what NATO must deliver together when we all meet, at the Heads of State and Government level at the Summit in Washington. 
And those three issues are deterrence and defence, it’s Ukraine and then it’s how to strengthen further our partnership with our partners in the Asia Pacific.
 
And I will just briefly go through the three of them and then, rest assured we work hard on all of those as we move towards decisions later on this summer. 
 
First on the deterrence and defence. For many years after the end of the Cold War, NATO actually build down our collective defence. We reduced the number of troops, reduced the readiness and we changed the character of those troops from collective defence, heavy armour in Europe to more expeditionary forces conducting operations in Afghanistan, in the Balkans and elsewhere. Since 2014, there has been a huge change, because since the illegal annexation of Crimea, and since Russia first went into eastern Donbass, we have implemented the biggest reinforcement to our collective defence in a generation. 
With higher readiness of our troops, for the first time battlegroups, combat ready troops in the eastern part of the Alliance, first in the Baltic countries and Poland. Then after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, we doubled the number of battlegroups and we also made a decision to be able to scale them up from battalion size to brigade size battlegroups, and we have increased readiness and we have also agreed new defence plans with much higher ambitions for forces, for readiness, for capabilities. 
 
So, this is a big transformation of the Alliance which has already taken place and that has to continue as we face a more aggressive Russia and a global great power competition and many other threats. 
 
To do so, Allies have to invest more, and I attended the NATO Summit in Wales, in Cardiff in 2014, where we made the decision that all Allies should spend 2% of GDP on defence. At that time, only three Allies, Greece, United Kingdom and United States spent 2% of GDP on defence. All other Allies spent less and many of them, much less. Also, the Czech Republic, The Baltic countries were far away from 2%.
 
Since then, Allies have really started to increase and the latest report we have was published in February, and in that report 18 out of 32 Allies are spending 2% of GDP on defence. But I expect that number to increase by the Summit in July. In not so many weeks we will publish new updated numbers. And since February, Sweden has joined the Alliance, Sweden is already spending 2%, so then we are 19. Then Norway has announced, finally, that they will spend 2% of GDP on defence and also some other Allies are already close. 
 
So, I really hope that by the Summit in July, we will have even better numbers to present. And that is the best way to demonstrate that actually we are delivering on our pledges to invest more to strengthen our collective defence, and because that has a cost. And we also agreed that that 2% is a minimum, for many Allies there is a need to spend more than 2% to meet the capability targets we have agreed as an Alliance. 
 
Then it’s good news that the Czech Republic has now decided that they will spend 2% of GDP. I just met with the Prime Minister, and they were very much aware of that this is a challenge. But he promised again that in 2024, this year, the Czech Republic will spend at least 2% of GDP on defence and my understanding is that there is broad political support. So, it’s a kind of robust agreement across the party lines for spending these 2% of GDP on defence. 
 
So, that’s the first task – to demonstrate progress on collective defence, on readiness, on forces and capabilities, including air defence, and defence spending when we meet in Washington in July and one of the issues we’ll discuss tomorrow at the Foreign Ministerial Meeting.
 
Then, the second main topic, and the most urgent topic is of course Ukraine.
 
NATO Allies have provided unprecedented support to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022. And I think that President Putin totally underestimated the Ukrainians, their bravery, their commitment to fight. He thought he was going to take control over Ukraine within weeks. He totally failed. Because he underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, their bravery, their skill, their commitment to defend their land. But, he also underestimated NATO Allies and our commitment to support Ukraine. And NATO Allies have provided a lot of military support. Actually 99% of the military support to Ukraine comes from NATO Allies.
 
It’s ammunition, artillery, air defence, battle tanks and many other types of military support. And the countries represented here today are among those who are really delivered a lot including Poland, Finland and also the Czech Republic. So, we are grateful for them and all the other Allies for what they have done. 
 
And today I was also updated by the Czech-led Ammunition Initiative, which is also making a big difference. With Czech coordination, you have been able to buy from the international market, ammunition which soon will be delivered to Ukraine and that will make a difference on the battlefield, every day. So, thank you Czechia, the Czech Republic, for being such a staunch and important Ally in providing support to Ukraine. We can all be proud of this.
 
But the reality is that what we have done is not enough. And the reality is also that over the last months, we have seen serious delays in the provision of ammunition, military support and serious gaps, for instance, when it comes to air defence and ammunition. And that’s the reason why we are now working on in NATO, how NATO can have a bigger role in coordinating the provision of security assistance, the delivery of security assistance and training. To ensure that we have a stronger framework to minimize the risks for new gaps and delays in the supplies of weapons and ammunition and training for Ukrainians. 
 
And also, I have proposed a multi-year financial pledge. We actually agree for several years that we’re going to give a minimum of financial support to buy military stuff to Ukraine, to finance our military support or incline the delivery, to ensure that we have more transparency, more accountability, and more predictability for Ukrainians in planning and knowing what they can expect to receive from NATO Allies. 
 
And such a multi-year commitment will help the Ukrainians defend their country, but also sends a very important message to Moscow that we are there for the long haul. And that’s important, to convince them that they cannot wait us out. We are there to stay. And therefore, I welcome the fact that we are now discussing, addressing, working on how to agree a greater NATO role in coordination of the support and a multiyear financial commitment to ensure more robust and predictable support to Ukraine. 
 
Final decisions will be made at the Summit. In the meantime, we need to just continue to provide as much support as possible, because this is critical for Ukrainians, but also critical for our own security.
 
Then, you may have seen there have been discussions about the type of support, but also the use of the support that we provide. I think we need to recognize that Allies are delivering many different types of military support to Ukraine.
 
And some of them have imposed restrictions on the use of these weapons. Others have no restrictions on the weapons they have delivered to Ukraine. These are national decisions. But I think that in light of how this war has evolved, in the beginning, almost all the fighting took place on Ukrainian territory, deep into Ukrainian territory. But now, the last weeks or months, most of the heavy fighting has taken place, actually, along the border between Russia and Ukraine in the Kharkiv region. 
 
And, then we see that the Russians can be on the Russian side of the border which is then more or less the same as the frontline. They can be there with their artillery, with their missile launchers, with their airplanes and depots for ammunition and fuel and be at least more safe than they would have been if they could have been attacked also with the most advanced weapons that Ukraine has received. 
 
And therefore, I believe that the time has come to consider some of these restrictions to enable the Ukrainians to really defend themselves. We need to remember what this is – this is a war of aggression launched by choice by Moscow against Ukraine. Russia invaded another country, invaded Ukraine, and Ukraine has, according to international law, the right to defend themselves. Its enshrined in the UN Charter. And the right for self-defence includes also striking military targets, legitimate military targets outside Ukraine. Military targets, for instance, on the border, Russian territory launching attacks against Ukrainian forces.
 
So, this is now an issue which is addressed by Allies and I think it reflects that the character of the war has changed over the last two weeks and a couple of months. 
 
The last issue on the meeting tomorrow and at the Summit is the fact that we need to strengthen our global partnerships, in particular with our Asia Pacific partners. This reflects the fact that security is not regional, security is global. And this is very clearly demonstrated by the war in Ukraine.
 
If we look at who are Russia’s best friends in this war, it’s Iran that is delivering drones and helping Russia with building a factory to produce even more Iranian drones. It’s North Korea, which is delivering big amounts, more than 1 million rounds of ammunition to Russia, and then it’s China, propping up the Russian war economy, delivering a lot of dual use equipment, advanced electronics, microprocessors. 90% of the microelectronics delivered or imported by Russia last year came from China, so Russia would not have been able to conduct the war they do against Ukraine without China propping up their economy. 
In return, Russia is mortgaging its future to Beijing and sharing technology with North Korea and Iran to help them with their missile and nuclear programs. So, this demonstrates that what happens in Europe matters for Asia, what happens in Asia matters for Europe and therefore NATO will remain a regional Alliance, North America and Europe, but we need to work with our global partners not least, the Indo Pacific partners, and therefore I welcome that the Heads of State and Government from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea will attend our meeting in July.
 
These are the three main challenges, the three main issues.
 
We will work on them all the way to the Summit. I’m confident that we’ll make important decisions on all these three challenges because NATO is the most successful Alliance in history because we have been able to, despite our differences, despite the fact that we now are 32 Allies from both sides of Atlantic, that we again and again have proven our ability to find consensus, to make decisions which reflects that we are adapting when the world is changing. Now we face a more dangerous world. We need NATO more than ever, but we need an agile and adaptable NATO. And that’s what we are demonstrating.
 
So once again, thanks so much for hosting me and my delegation here in Prague. I look forward to the Foreign Ministerial Meeting starting later on today. 
 
And thanks so much and good luck with the conference. Thank you.
 

Source: NATO

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg commended Czechia for its vital role in NATO in a visit to Prague on Thursday (30 May 2024). The Czech capital will host an informal meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on Thursday and Friday.

Source: NATO

Prime Minister Fiala,
Dear Petr,

It is great to see you again,
And it’s great to be here in the beautiful city of Prague.

The Czech Republic is a reliable and strong and highly valued NATO Ally.

And not least because this year, you will spend more than 2% percent of GDP on defence.

You lead NATO’s battlegroup in Slovakia.
And you contribute forces to our battlegroups in Latvia and Lithuania, helping to deter any aggression.

Your forces also serve in NATO missions in Kosovo and Iraq.
In response to Russia’s brutal war of aggression, you have also stepped support to Ukraine.

Czechia hosts hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

You provide critical military equipment to Ukraine, including tanks, helicopters and air defence missiles.

And the Czech-led ammunition initiative is providing more artillery shells for Ukraine.
And you updated me on the initiative during our meeting, and I can just say that this is of great importance.
It’s really making a difference.
And it’s very good news that the first delivery of artillery shells will happen very soon and there will be a continued flow of ammunition into Ukraine, organised by the Czech ammunition initiative.
So many, many thanks for everything you do,
But in particular, many thanks for the very important work you have done in establishing the Czech-led ammunition initiative.

Let me also thank you for hosting tomorrow’s informal Meeting of NATO’s Foreign Ministers.
It will be an important moment to continue preparing for the upcoming Summit in Washington.

When leaders meet in July, we will take further steps to invest in our security, strengthen ties with partners, and bolster our support to Ukraine.

Ukraine continues to fight bravely, but the challenges they face are greater and growing. Ukraine can still prevail – but only with continued, robust support from NATO Allies.

So at the NATO Summit in  July, we plan to put our support on a firmer footing.
Including with a greater NATO role in coordinating security assistance and training, as well as a multi-year financial commitment.

We also plan to work even more closely with our Indo-Pacific partners: Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
Including on technology, cyber, and countering hybrid threats.

At our ministerial, the Foreign Ministerial Meeting tomorrow, we will also discuss how to address instability in our southern neighbourhood, including the continuing threat of terrorism.

So Prime Minister Fiala,
Thank you again for your hospitality.

I look forward to a successful ministerial meeting here in Prague,
And a successful Washington Summit in just six weeks’ time from now.
So, thank you so much for hosting.