Opening remarks at the pre-ministerial press briefing by NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Good afternoon,

So I’ll just start with a couple of details on the timings for this one-day Ministerial meeting. It’s a meeting of Defence Ministers as you know. I will be on record throughout and my two colleagues will be speaking as ‘senior NATO officials.’

So very quickly, this is the first opportunity since the Wales Summit for Defence ministers to look at the progress that’s being made but also to look forward to the Warsaw Summit, which as you know will be taking place in 2016.

In particular the focus will be the Readiness Action Plan.

The schedule will be quite tight.

The Secretary General will hold a short doorstep at 7.50 am at the front entrance. He will have time obviously for a few questions.

The actual meetings will kick off at 9.00. And we are starting with a meeting of the Nuclear Planning Group. As you might know is a regular meeting that the ministers have practically every year. The focus is on the continued safety, security and effectiveness of NATO’s nuclear deterrent.

That will be followed at 10:45 by a meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission with the Georgian Defence Minister, Mindia Janeldidze.

The Secretary General will give a press conference at around 12:30.

Then, at around 13.00, the ministers will discuss over a working lunch the challenges that the Alliance faces to the east and to the south, and their impact on NATO’s defence planning process.

That will be followed by the final session at 15:45 to discuss the implementation of the Readiness Action Plan. So I would expect substantive decisions as the Secretary General indicated at his press conference last week.

Finally, there will be a family picture at 18:20 followed by the second press conference of the Secretary General.