NATO Defence Ministers to take key decisions to strengthen deterrence and defence

Good morning.

Today and tomorrow, we will make decisions to strengthen our defence and deterrence.

And I expect the Defence Ministers to agree to enhance our forward presence in the eastern part of our Alliance.

This will send a clear signal. NATO will respond as one to any aggression against any Ally.

We have already significantly enhanced our presence and readiness of our forces.

• Allies have committed the assets we need for air policing, maritime patrols and exercises.
• The first six small headquarters or NATO Force Integration Units have been activated. And we are setting up two more in the near future.
• At the end of last year, we agreed assurance measures for Turkey – with AWACS surveillance planes, air policing, an increased naval presence in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea and we decided to continue the deployment of our Patriot batteries to augment the air defences of Turkey.

We are also doing more to deal with hybrid challenges.

I am pleased to announce that later today, NATO and the European Union will sign technical arrangements to enhance our cyber cooperation.

Our emergency response teams will have a structured framework for exchanging information and sharing best practices.

This is a concrete example of NATO and the EU working together to counter hybrid threats.

This afternoon, NATO Defence Ministers will have an exchange of views on how we take decisions in the face of hybrid threats from any direction.

This will help ensure that we have the necessary tools and procedures in place.

And it is part of NATO’s continued adaptation.

We will also take steps to increase the resilience of our Alliance.

In terms of food and energy supplies, and transportation and communications networks.

This evening, we will meet with the European Union, as well as our partners Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan, and Sweden.

We will discuss how we can address together the challenges in our neighbourhood, to the south and to the east.

During the course of this ministerial, we will also discuss how NATO can support Allies in responding to the refugee and migrant crisis we see in Europe and close to Europe in the Middle East, Syria and Turkey. We will do so based on an initiative by Turkey.

Finally, the US has requested the use of NATO AWACS surveillance planes.

This can be done by backfilling national AWACS capabilities.

Thereby enabling the coalition fighting ISIL to conduct more strikes against ISIL.

I expect that ministers will endorse a positive response to this request.

Our military planners will then look into the details.

We will conclude tomorrow by a meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission.

The review Georgia’s progress in delivering defence reforms and the latest security developments will be on our agenda.