Continually adapting to a changing world

Minister of Defence, General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's really a great honour and pleasure for me to be here today, and not only to be here but also to have this visit today to Madrid, where I had many meetings, good meetings with the Minister of Defence, where I met the Prime Minister or the President of the Council, as you call him, and also an excellent meeting with the King.

And then I met the press and that was actually very important because then I was able to tell them how much I appreciate how Spain is contributing to our Alliance, to our shared security and to our collective defence, in so many different ways, and I also commended Spain for being a committed Ally for 35 years, more than 35 years, both when it comes to our efforts to provide deterrence and defence in Europe, but also when it comes to NATO's efforts to project stability beyond our borders, not least in the fight against terrorism.  And this is important because we are faced with a completely new and more demanding security environment, and NATO has to respond.  And NATO is responding in many different ways.

As you know, the fall of the Berlin Wall brought unprecedented freedom, democracy and prosperity to Europe.  But in the recent years, Europe's security, security landscape has changed significantly.  From Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea to the turmoil and the violence across North Africa and the Middle East, instability has spread throughout our neighbourhood.  We see cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, dramatic increases in migration and significant terrorist attacks in many NATO countries, not least here in Spain, with the Madrid train bombings and last year's barbaric attack in Barcelona.

As a result of this changed security environment, NATO Allies have responded with strength and determination.  At our summit in Brussels in July, NATO leaders will agree the next steps for our Alliance.

The five themes of the Brussels Summit will be:

Further strengthening our deterrence and defence; stepping up our efforts to project stability in our neighbourhood; including the fight against terrorism; making the partnership between NATO and the EU even stronger; continuing to modernise our Alliance; and ensuring fairer burden sharing.

I would like to spend now some moments on each of those themes.  First, deterrence and defence: Since 2014, NATO has transformed its ability to respond to crisis from any direction, on land, at sea, in the air or from cyberspace.  Our forces have increased their ability to move quickly to where they are needed and we have developed multinational troops and equipment in the East and… sorry, and we have deployed multinational troops and equipment in the East of our Alliance, to deter any aggression.

Spain is one of the leading contributors to NATO missions and operations and I would like to thank you for your ongoing commitment to the Alliance.  In 2016, Spain led the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and Spanish patriot missile battery helps to defend Turkish southern border, and 300 Spanish troops are currently deployed as part of our forward presence in the East.  I was pleased to meet some of them when I visited Latvia last summer.  And the Spanish soldiers which you deploy in Latvia, but also other places, are professional, dedicated and we are all impressed by the high quality of the personnel you deploy to NATO missions and operations.

Much of our work so far has focused on our land forces, but a large of the Euro-Atlantic area is covered by water.  Individually, Allies such as Spain have considerable maritime power.  But together, we can do so much more to reinforce our maritime posture.  NATO's actions respond to a more unpredictable world.  They are defensive, proportionate and in line with our international commitments.  NATO does not want a new Cold War, nor do we want a new arms race.  Our aim is to prevent a conflict, not to provoke one.  That is why we maintain a dual-track approach towards Russia: defence and dialogue.  This remains the right approach.

In the two following… in the two years following Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, no meetings of the NATO-Russia Council were held.  But in the last two years, we have met six times to improve transparency and to reduce risks.  This dialogue with Russia is difficult, but that is exactly why the dialogue is so important.

The second Summit theme will be projecting stability, including the fight against terrorism.  Spain knows better than most the challenges coming from the South.  We must do all we can to maintain and increase stability in our neighbourhood because, when our neighbours are more stable, we are more secure, and training and advising local forces is one of the best tools we have.

In Iraq, NATO has already started a wide range of support and training for the armed forces.  I thank Spain for its contribution to NATO's training to counter Improvised Explosive Devices, enabling Iraqi troops to more effectively stabilise their own country and to counter terrorism.  Your leadership and expertise, as the hosts of the Centre of Excellence for Counter IEDs, has been crucial for our progress in Iraq.

I also want to commend Spain's long and unwavering commitment to Afghanistan.  Our Resolute Support Mission remains a priority, providing support to the government and enabling the armed forces to bring stability to their country.  I welcome Spain's increased contribution to this important NATO mission in 2018.

Countering terrorism is important for all NATO Allies.  We are stepping up our efforts to help our partners build a counter-terrorism capacity, as part of the global coalition to defeat ISIS and to support Allies in need.  NATO can bring its unique expertise, but terrorism is a foe that must be fought on many fronts.  It requires a diverse toolset.  That means working with others, especially with the European Union.

And this brings me to our third summit theme: NATO-EU cooperation.  More than 90% of EU citizens are protected by NATO, meaning that more than 90% of the citizens in European countries live in NATO countries.  So, it's only natural that we should be close partners.  In 2016, in Warsaw, President Juncker, President Tusk and I signed a joint declaration.  Since then, we have made unprecedented progress.  The partnership between NATO and the EU is now stronger than ever before.  We cooperate on a range of issues, including on cyber exercises, terrorism, military and mobility, and we have been working hard to implement the issues we agreed on last year.

NATO's maritime Operation Sea Guardian provides critical support to EU's Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean.  On cyber, NATO and the EU exchange warnings about cyberattacks and malware in real time.  The EU recently participated in NATO's cyber coalition exercise, one of the biggest exercises in the world.  And last year, I opened the Centre of Excellence on Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, together with EU High Representative, Vice President Federica Mogherini.

So, these are just some examples of how we are now, step by step, in area after area, strengthening the NATO-EU cooperation.  And I am also a strong supporter of EU efforts on defence.  It means more spending, more European capabilities and fairer sharing of the transatlantic burden and, as a result, a stronger NATO. 

It has the potential to be a win-win for the EU, for NATO and for the transatlantic relationship.  But to realise this potential, we need coherence between NATO and EU efforts on capability development.  Nations should not be presented with conflicting requirements and priorities.  We must also ensure that forces and capabilities generated through NATO initiatives are available for NATO commitments.  We cannot have two sets of forces, one for NATO and one for the EU.

Remember that after Brexit, as much as 80% of NATO's defence spending will come from non-EU Allies, and three of the four battlegroups we have deployed in the Eastern part of the Alliance will be led by non-EU Allies: the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.  So, we need complementarity, not competition between NATO and the European Union.

The fourth theme of the Summit will be continuous modernisation.  Modernisation of the Alliance.  To underpin everything I have spoken about, our policies, our processes and our use of resources, we must be as effective and as efficient as possible.

A fundamental element is the adaptation of the NATO command structure.  The command structure is the backbone of our Alliance.  It is what allows all our nations to plan, prepare and, if necessary, to fight together as one.

After the Cold War, the command structure was dramatically reduced.  Tensions had eased, so that was the right thing to do.  But now that tensions are high, we need to build up once more.  The new command structure must be able to support all Allies all the time, now and in the future.  Among other things, we are looking to establish a new command for the Atlantic, to ensure that sea lines of communication between Europe and North America, remain free and secure.  We are planning to establish a new command to improve the movement of military forces across Europe and we are planning to set up a new cyber operation centre.

Finally, the fifth theme of the Brussels Summit, which is essential to all of the others, is burden sharing.  At the next meeting of Defence Ministers in February, Allies will report on their specific defence investment plans, covering cash, capabilities and contributions.  In other words, how they intend to move towards investing 2% of GDP on defence, how they will invest additional funding in key military capabilities, and how they are contributing to NATO missions and operations. 

This will set the scene for the summit in Brussels in July, where we will review the progress we have made in implementing the most substantial increase in our collective defence in a generation.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we face greater and more complex challenges than we have for decades.  But there is a Spanish proverb that goes: "En la union esta la fuerza" [laughter] No, it sounds very good. [laughter] It is the union of the 29 nations of the NATO Alliance that makes us strong.  As we head towards the Brussels Summit, there is still much to do and there will be more yet in the years ahead.  But when we look back to what we have achieved together, to the unity and the solidarity we have demonstrated, then I am absolutely confident that the NATO Alliance will continue to protect the almost one billion citizens who rely on it for their security.

Thank you so much for your attention.

[applause]