Opening remarks

Thank you so much, Prime Minister Cerar and thank you for the warm welcome. And I appreciate very much to be here.

I also thank you for going directly, or actually leaving the EU meeting in Brussels to be able to receive me here in Ljubljana.

I have been in Ljubljana many times before. I was here as a child in the 1960s and 70s. Then I visited Ljubljana as Prime Minister of Norway, but this is my first visit to Slovenia and to Ljubljana as a Secretary General of NATO.

And I appreciate to be here as a Secretary General of NATO because Slovenia is a highly valued Ally. And you really contribute to our collective defence because you contribute in so many different ways to the Alliance.

First of all, you contribute to our missions in the Western Balkans. Especially in Kosovo, KFOR, where you play a key role and provide key forces to the NATO operation in Kosovo.  Then you have also, for many, many years, contributed to our mission in Afghanistan.

And you have also helicopters which are of great importance. And this helicopter unit has been something which has been a key capability, which we are very grateful for that Slovenia is providing.  

And all of this reflects Slovenia’s strong commitment to our collective security.

NATO benefits from having Slovenia as an Ally, but also of course Slovenia benefits from the collective defence and the collective security NATO is providing.  

NATO is for instance responsible for Slovenia’s air space security. We are doing air policing in your airspace.

And I think this just underlines that NATO is an Alliance based on the idea of “one for all and all for one” that we protect and defend each other and that is important for all of us.

And I appreciate to be here to discuss with and your Ministers and the President how we can even develop further the action to work with you together in the Alliance.  

We do that in a new and changing security environment. We see threats and challenges coming from the south with ISIL, with the violence, turmoil, spreading across Iraq, Syria, North Africa, the Middle East. 

But we also see a more assertive behavior of Russia in the east, annexing Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine. 

And all of this requires response from NATO. We are adapting, we are responding, we are making our forces more ready, more prepared. And Slovenia is also participating in that. And you will be part of the High Readiness Force, NATO is establishing. You will be part of that in 2018, together with Italy.  And that is also a contribution of Slovenia to our collective defence and the increased readiness and preparedness of our forces.   

Of course this will also demand increased investments in the defence, and that is the reason why it was important that we made a pledge together, all 28 Allies, last fall where we made the pledge to stop the cuts in defence spending and then gradually increase defence spending as our economies grow and then to reach two percent GDP for defence over a decade.

And this is not easy and we don’t believe that this will happen overnight.  But I welcome the announcement by you and your government that you will stop the cuts and then gradually start to increase defence spending as the economy grows.

And this is important because we all have to contribute when we are going to meet the pledge we made together.

And it is possible, and I also welcome the announcement made by several of the Allies to start to increase defence spending.

And just last week the UK announced that it will increase defence expenditures in real terms for the next five years. And also made a strong commitment to our pledge to spend two percent of GDP on defence.

This is a great example of leadership within our Alliance and it shows that it can be done. So more and more countries are stepping up stopping the cuts and starting to increase and I welcome also that Slovenia will be a country which is now going to stop the cuts and start to increase denfence spending.

This, or the question of adaptation of the Alliance to a new security environment, increase defence spending are issues which we are going to address at our Summit in Warsaw next year and it just shows that NATO is able to adapt when the security environment is changing.

I am also looking forward to visit the Mountain Warfare Centre of Excellence which you are in the process of establishing here in Slovenia.  

This is something I look very much forward to visit myself later on today and that is also a contribution of Slovenia to our collective defence. And it is a key skills which are developed there because Mountain Warfare is something we have to develop with skills in Mountain Warfare and it is one other example of how Slovenia is contributing to the Alliance.

So I am very glad and happy to be here and I am looking forward to continue our discussions during lunch. Thank you.

Q:  Hello, Goris Egoch [sp?] from the Slovenian Press Agency. A question for Mr. Stoltenberg if I may. You heard our Prime Minister talk about Montenegro and the question of membership if it’s possible by the end of the year, there’s a lot of regional things going on at the moment, we also have the question of Greece in the sense of security, strategic wise, I would like a comment on that. And also on, on the reality, on the possibility, on the outlook of Montenegro from a regional stability point of view being able to join the Alliance within the next year or so. Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO SECRETARY GENERAL):   I think it’s very important that NATO continues to be very present and to be very focused on the developments in the Western Balkans in general, because this is an area where we really have made a lot of progress, compared to the wars, the violence that we saw during the 1990s and we have seen countries like Slovenia, Croatia becoming full members of the European Union, full members of NATO, but we, and we still see several countries which are moving on the same Euro Atlantic path but which have not been able to reach as far as Slovenia and Croatia. And of course we have to avoid, we have to do whatever we can to continue to support a development in this part of European, Southeast Europe, which leads to more stability, more economic growth and, and where we are supporting those countries who would like to move towards an even closer Euro Atlantic integration. In that context the question of inviting Montenegro into the Alliance is a very important issue and NATO’s position is unchanged. We will make our decision at our Foreign Ministerial Meeting in December. I visited Montenegro a few weeks ago, Montenegro is making real progress on the, the important issues of for instance the rule of law and defence investments, reforming their intelligence sector. So I welcome the progress Montenegro has made and is making and I’m looking forward to our decision which is then going to be taken in December. When it comes to Greece I of course welcome that the, that there is an agreement, I think that’s important for Greece, it’s important for the European Union and Europe but it’s also important for NATO and for all of us. Stability, economic prosperity is important for many reasons but it’s of course also important for the security of all our countries and also Greece being a staunch and very committed Ally, I welcome that they have now been able to reach an agreement with the European Union and their creditors.

Q:  [Inaudible], daily newspaper Vecer [sp?], a question for Mr. General Secretary. How the Alliance will react if, in case Slovenia is not going to be able to fulfil its promises about increasing the defence budget? If it will not be able to increase it to 2 % of GDP in next few years, which is the agreement from last year’s summit in Wales.

JENS STOLTENBERG:  First of all I would like to reiterate what I just said, and that is that the pledge we made in Wales, we made in Wales, was about stopping the cuts in defence spending and as far as I understand that’s exactly what Slovenia has announced that it will do, is to stop the cuts. Then to gradually increase defence spending when the economy starts to grow again. And then to aim at reaching 2 % over a decade. So no one believes that it’s possible to reach 2 % of GDP as of next year or in the, in the short term. But we believe it’s possible to stop cuts, we believe it’s possible to gradually increase defence spending and then to aim at 2 % over a decade. And I trust and I feel very confident that, that is what Slovenia is going to do and that Slovenia has already decided to stop the cuts and then that as the economy starts to grow, the economy is picking up then also defence spending will gradually start to increase in Slovenia. Again we all understand that all politicians always would prefer to spend money, funds on education, health and other issues than defence and I have been both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and I have been responsible for reducing defence spending in Norway in the 1990s. So I know exactly how that is done and how much tempting it is, but that was in times where tensions went down. It was after the end of the Cold War. So yes it’s possible and it might actually be the right thing to do when tensions are going down to reduce defence spending, but then we have to be able to increase defence spending again when tensions are going up and that’s exactly what we see now. We see a more challenging and more demanding security environment and therefore also as Prime Minister of Norway I was able to increase defence spending, the last, since 2008 and that’s also the reason why I believe it’s the right thing to do of NATO now, to increase defence spending when we see the security environment is becoming more challenging.

Q:   My name is Marian Levank [sp?], I’m from Reuters. Mr. Secretary General I would like to ask you whether there are any possibilities of increasing United States troops in Europe under the NATO umbrella? And whether you approve of NATO countries sending little weapons to Ukraine with USA being one of them? Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG:  The United States is the Ally which provides the biggest contribution to our collective defence. They have troops in Europe but they have also now recently announced and they did so at our Defence Ministerial Meeting a few days ago, that the United States will provide what we call the enablers to the High Readiness Force of NATO. So seven European Allies are taking the lead to provide the troops for the new High Readiness Force, the Spearhead Force as we call it, but then the United States will provide key enablers as for instance airlift and other kinds of key capabilities which is needed for these new forces. In addition United States announced, or the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that they will also preposition equipment in several European Allied countries for exercises but this means that we will also have prepositioning of more equipment. Then United States is also taking part in what we call the Assurance Measures and this is something we started to do last year, that’s air policing in the Baltic countries, in Poland, Romania, its more exercises in the eastern part of the Alliance and it’s also more naval presence. So NATO has increased its presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, the United States is a key part of that and they have in addition announced both the provision of key enablers to the High Readiness Force and, and prepositioning of heavy equipment and there are more exercises, more presence on the ground. So all of this is something which the United States is, is playing its full part of. Then the other question was about Ukraine. NATO doesn’t, doesn’t possess weapons so we don’t, we don’t supply countries with weapons. What I welcome is that first of all that NATO provides strong political support for Ukraine, to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine, we support the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements and Russia has a special responsibility to stop supporting the separatists in Eastern Ukraine. And we also support, we also provide practical support for Ukraine. We have established several trust funds helping them with logistics, with cyber and also demining and we’re in the process of establishing a new trust fund which is going to address the question of demining and also encountering improvised explosive devices. So we continue to provide practical support for Ukraine. In addition to that many NATO Allies provide practical support for Ukraine on a bilateral basis. So for instance the United States, UK, Canada, they do training of Ukrainian forces and all of this I welcome, all of this is, is support for Ukraine and, and this is important but the most important thing now is of course that we have the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

Q:  [Speaking foreign language].

Q:  [Inaudible], for Mr. Secretary General, this is from Greece. Despite all the austerity measures in the last two years we have not seen some dramatic budget cuts in the Greece military. Now with the new deal these are likely to happen, so given the fact that Greece was one of the few countries that was providing the recommended 2 % GDP and given the strategic location of Greece with the Middle East and Russia and migrants situation in the Mediterranean, what is NATO position on perhaps budget cuts that are likely to happen in the Greece military?

JENS STOLTENBERG:  I haven’t seen the details so it’s hard for me to comment on exact figures. What I can say is that Greece is a staunch and very committed Ally, Greece is an Ally which has spent more than 2 % on defence for several years. I am absolutely confident that Greece will continue to be a staunch and very committed Ally and, and I welcome the agreement because I think the agreement is important for the Greek economy but I think it’s also important for the whole of Europe and also for NATO. And I, I’m not, as I don’t know the exact, I haven’t seen the figures, I don’t know the details about anything related to defence spending but I, I am confident that Greece will continue to be a strong, committed Ally which is going to continue to invest in defence also in the future.

MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.