Experts debate credit crunch effects on NATO and new security environment
The global economic downturn’s impact on the defence budgets and military operations of NATO member states were discussed at the international conference “NATO, the Credit Crunch and the New Security Environment” in Brussels on 17 December 2009.
The event brought together some 200 representatives of the Brussels-based security and defence community. Opening the conference, Belgian Defence Minister Pieter De Crem, said that ‘in times of economic crisis, partnerships are more important than ever before for the Alliance in order to achieve its goals and share costs.”
The Alliance “has the duty to reassure all Allies responsibly,” said Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee. “For its member states, NATO is a platform, an enabler to be used across the whole spectrum of threats and challenges the Alliance faces and will face in the future”, he added.
Peter Flory, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, and Antonius Chatzidakis, General Manager of the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA), also addressed the conference.
Other speakers included Fernando Perpina-Robert Peyra, Adam Rotfeld, Geoff Hoon and Ümit Pamir – all members of the Group of Experts on NATO’s new Strategic Concept.
The conference was organized by the Brussels-based think-tank Security and Defence Agenda with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.