Press statement

Thank you so much, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. It’s great to be back and thank you for your warm welcome. And thank you for your very strong support to NATO.

Italy has been a driving force within the Alliance. And it was great to sit together with you now and to address the different challenges and the way NATO is responding to a new and more challenging security environment.

And Italy is contributing in so many different ways. You are participating in the Baltic Air Policing, you have assets in our Mediterranean Operation Active Endeavour. And you contribute a substantial number of forces both for our operation in Afghanistan, the Resolute Support Mission and to Kosovo.

Add to that that Italy also plays a lead role in the increased readiness and preparedness of our forces, being a lead nation for our Very High-Readiness Joint Task Force or our new Spearhead Force.

And I would also like to mention that Italy hosts different important NATO assets and facilities like for instance the new Alliance Ground Surveillance capability, cutting-edge drones, which will increase our ability for situational awareness and reconnaissance and the collection of information, which is going to be hosted at the Sigonella base in Sicily.

So you are contributing in many many different ways and I’m very grateful for the strong contribution of Italy to the Alliance.

This is important because we are faced with a both more assertive Russia to the east but also with turmoil, violence spreading across the wider Middle-East region and North-Africa.

And NATO is responding. We’ve just had excellent discussions on how we prepare for our next Summit in Warsaw in July and there we are going to address how we can strengthen our collective defence and deterrence and also how we further develop our approach to Russia based on both strong defence but also political dialogue, keeping the channels for political dialogue open with Russia because NATO doesn’t seek confrontation. We don’t want a new Cold War. And therefore we will make sure that we keep channels for political dialogue open with Russia.

We will also address how NATO can project stability beyond our borders, helping local forces to secure their own countries against violent extremism.

And NATO has started to train Iraqi officers, we will address how we can scale that up, enable Iraq to fight ISIL and to stabilise their own country.

We are also working with countries like Jordan and Tunisia.

And we stand ready to help Libya build its own defence institutions if so requested by the new Government of National Accord in Libya as part of broader UN-led efforts.

And I spoke recently with Prime Minister Sarraj on how NATO can assist and he will soon send a team of experts to NATO to identify how we can help the new Libyan Government of National Accord.

Our training mission in Afghanistan is another important contribution to combatting extremism and terrorism. Last week we agreed to sustain our Resolute Support Mission beyond 2016 and we continue to count on Italy’s commitment as a lead nation in Afghanistan and I visited myself the Italian forces in Herat: they are professional, they are committed and they are making a real difference in Afghanistan, helping the Afghans to build their own security.

We also discussed our plans to deepen EU-NATO cooperation. We are working closer together than ever before, the EU and NATO.

In the Aegean, where NATO is helping cut the lines of illegal trafficking and illegal migration. And we can do more, especially when it comes to cooperation in the central Mediterranean. So I strongly welcome the Italian initiative for closer coordination with the EU in the Mediterranean, making sure that NATO and the EU work together addressing the challenges we see in the Mediterranean, including how NATO can support the EU Operation Sophia.

And we are working on how we can contribute to address the common challenges and threats in the Mediterranean, it will be one of the issues that we will also address at our Summit in Warsaw.

So we have a broad agenda, approaching the Summit in Warsaw.

I am impressed by the way we are able to stand together, be united, and respond to a new security environment.

And I look forward to meet you again in Warsaw where we will make important decisions and make the Summit in Warsaw a landmark Summit for the whole NATO Alliance.

Thank you once again for receiving me and my delegation.