Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-583"
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"en.20101215.30.3-583"2
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"Madam President, the NATO Summit in Lisbon was a success for NATO and indeed for its Secretary-General. I was very pleased to have participated in some of its discussions.
On 9 December, EU Ministers of Defence warmly welcomed the progress that has been achieved in strengthening cooperation with NATO. We have already worked together, for example on helicopter availability, and we have now defined the building blocks on counter improvised explosive devices and medical support. These are both vitally important areas of work with real operational consequences for our troops serving in the field.
Just to give a couple of concrete examples. In the field of helicopter availability, we already had two exercises in France and in Spain. Similar exercises are planned for the next four years. In that context, we trained a 114 crews, that is over 1 300 personnel with 58 helicopters. As an immediate result, 63 trained crews were deployed in Afghanistan. Another example, this time in the field of countering road-side bombs, is the counter improvised explosive devices, where the European Defence Agency is in the final phase of purchasing a forensic laboratory which could be deployed in Afghanistan next year.
We have also continued to improve cooperation through the productive interaction between the European Defence Agency and the allied command for transformation.
Overall, my goal remains the development of true organisation-to-organisation relationship between the European Union and NATO. The meeting of Ministers of Defence last week paved the way to move forward towards that goal.
Pending wider solutions, it is essential that we can count on solid arrangements between us when we are deployed together in the same theatre. We owe this to our personnel. It is also essential to be able to continue to work effectively to support the Member States and the allies to develop critical military capabilities, building on the successful work we have launched already. I would argue that this is even more important in the current context of the economic backdrop.
We will all need flexibility to be able to take this forward and to find solutions. I will move forward in a concrete and pragmatic way working on behalf of all 27 Member States.
I will outline to honourable Members what I think are the important results achieved, focusing particularly on EU-NATO relations and I will not touch on the more internal NATO issues.
In Lisbon, the Heads of State and Government agreed on a new strategic concept, a vision for the alliance for the next ten years. NATO preserved its core tasks of collective defence and deterrents and recognised the importance of crisis management and cooperative security. Lisbon also paved the way for important decisions for NATO in a number of key areas such as missile defence, cyber defence, NATO reform and NATO’s contribution to stabilisation and reconstruction.
In relation to Afghanistan, which we just discussed and which is also an important area of cooperation between the EU and NATO, decisions were taken on both transition and on long-term partnership. I am going to focus on how Lisbon will in my view improve EU-NATO relations. This was also on the agenda of the Defence Ministers’ meeting which I chaired last week and which was also attended by NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen.
NATO is a key strategic partner for the European Union. I welcome the recognition by NATO Heads of State and Government of the important contribution the European Union brings to security and stability. I would like to underline the strong political commitment to the strengthening of the EU-NATO strategic partnership expressed by all, especially from President Obama.
I have been very actively engaged with Member States and allies and the NATO Secretary-General in order to reinforce EU-NATO relations. My participation in several NATO high-level meetings, including the Foreign Affairs dinner at the NATO Lisbon summit, which also focused on EU-NATO relations, has been instrumental in this regard.
Earlier this year I took the initiative of sending NATO a set of concrete measures to reinforce EU-NATO cooperation. Many of these measures have already been implemented in the European Union with the support of the Secretary-General of NATO. This generated opportunities for informal discussions on issues of common interest, as well as more EU political dialogue with all NATO allies.
My ambition is to pave the way to even more progress. I received a mandate for that at the European Council on 16 September. In Lisbon, Secretary-General Rasmussen received a similar mandate to work with me on reinforcing EU-NATO relations.
One area of progress is EU-NATO cooperation on capability development, an area where we are achieving promising results, particularly on the military capability development, which is necessary for both enhancing military capabilities and maximising cost effectiveness. More than ever we have to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication."@en1
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