Joint press point

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome Prime Minister Cerar of Slovenia here to NATO Headquarters.

And I also very much appreciate that you are able to come just few weeks after you took office. And I take that as a very strong sign of your strong commitment to the Alliance. I am very grateful for that. So thank you so much for coming and thank you so much for our excellent meeting.

Slovenia makes a valuable contribution to NATO. You have played an important role in Afghanistan.

But even more important that you have really contributed to our KFOR operation in Kosovo.

So I appreciate the way you are contributing to our collective security. NATO is there to protect and defend Slovenia. And we are also committed to your security by ensuring the security of your airspaces. And that is NATO solidarity in action in your skies every day.

So that just illustrates the importance of a strong line for the security of all Allied countries, including Slovenia.

We had excellent talks. We addressed different issues. We expressed concerns about the developments in Ukraine. The violation of the cease-fire. We addressed the developments in the Western Balkans and I commended the Prime Minister for the role and the efforts that Slovenia is making in the region. And Slovenia is playing an important role in trying to build a bond between the Western Balkans and the rest of Europe, and also the Transatlantic cooperation. 

So we also addressed the importance of investing in defence. Collective security is nothing we are able to get for free. I underlined very much that I appreciate this opportunity to have an open and so early meeting with the Prime Minister in his tenure as a Prime Minister. I look forward to work closely with you in the future. So welcome to NATO Headquarters.

MODERATOR: We’ve got time for a couple of questions. We’ll start with Slovenia Television.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible), Television Slovenia. 

One question for you, Mr. Secretary General. You mentioned investments into defence in Slovenia. Slovenia is one of the countries which is… which has only two per cent investment in the defence budget and the whole structure of the budget is by far not something NATO would be very happy with.

Also the GDP contribution to defence is just above one per cent. What was the message you gave to the Slovenian side today and do you expect this to change?

And Mr. Cerar, what was your message to the Secretary General on that matter? Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG: So my message was first of all that I was very grateful for the contributions that Slovenia is providing to the Alliance. Both by participating in important NATO operations, especially KFOR in Kosovo. And I thanked the Prime Minister for Slovenia’s contributions.

In addition of course I underlined what I underlined for all NATO governments and heads of states and heads of governments, and that is that we have to change a trend which has been declining for many years in almost all of NATO Allies.

And that is partly because at the end of the Cold War, many countries find that it was possible to reduce defence spending because reduce tensions at the end of the Cold War, and partly of course because of the economic crisis which have created problems for many Allies.

But in ways we agreed to change this to stop the reductions in defence spending and to both spend, to invest more in defence but also to invest better.

And I very much urged Slovenia to take even more part in cooperation with other nations and that can make our defence spending more efficient to be part of the framework nation with other countries in the region, and also to try to spend more of its total defence spending on investments in new equipment, modern equipment instead of just paying salaries.

And this is the same message I have for almost all NATO Allies because we have to turn the decline. During the last, or since 2005 we have seen a 20-per-cent decrease in NATO total defence spending and at the same time we have seen a 50-per-cent increase in Russia’s defence spending.

So it just illustrates that it’s time to stop at least cutting the defence budgets.

MIRO CERAR (Prime Minister of Slovenia): Well, I can only add that I’m in agreement with the Secretary General about the negative, I mean, about the assessment of the negative trends within the Allies and I do believe that Slovenia will be able to change the same trends within the next few years.

Of course as you know we are in a very difficult economic situation and right now it is important that we stop this decline relating to the budgetary spending.

And then in the future years, when the economic circumstances will allow that, and I’m sure that they will, we will then increase the budgetary spending for military and to change appropriately the structure of the spending as has been explained.

MODERATOR:  We have Telo (ph) Newspaper.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible), Planet T.V. You both declared the high importance of Slovenian soldiers in KFOR and also Afghanistan. But what about the issue of this new taskforce for rapid intervention? Is it already clear that Slovenian soldiers would also participate in this kind of forces?

I have this question for both of you. Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG: So we are in the… we made a decision in Wales to establish at the summit, NATO Summit in Wales we made a decision to establish a spearhead force which is a force that can be deployed which has very short notice, which has high readiness.

And our military authorities, they are now working full time on the implementation of that decision and there will be an update at the Foreign ministers’ meeting of NATO in the beginning of December.

And then I expect that the Minister of Defence at our NATO ministerial meeting in February to make the decisions on the details or when it comes to the size, the composition of the spearhead force.

The spearhead force is a part of the readiness action plan. And the readiness action plan is a more larger plan which aims at our… is to plan how we can make our forces more ready, more able, but also addresses questions like for instance assurance measures which we have implemented, more air policing, more exercises, more military presence on the ground, especially in the eastern part of our Alliance.

And of course we expect this to be a 28 for 28 plan and strengthening over our military capabilities. So the idea is that all countries in one way or another shall participate, but not necessarily to all elements of the readiness action plan. There are many different elements, but I expect all countries to participate at least in some of it.

MIRO CERAR: I have really nothing to add to this. I can just say that Slovenia is ready to give its share here, but of course it’s now upon the Minister of Defence and of course the advisors and other experts to decide how Slovenia can contribute in this way, as it has been exhaustively explained by the General Secretary.

So I leave this for the future plans to be debated in details.

MODERATOR:  Okay.

JENS STOLTENBERG: Thank you.

MIRO CERAR: Okay.

MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.

MIRO CERAR: Thank you very much.