Short remarks

Welcome, it is good to have you here.  

New Zealand is a highly valued partner of NATO and we very much appreciate the fact that you are now attending the NATO Summit in Vilnius.

For NATO it is important to further strengthen our partnership with a Partner like New Zealand because security is not the regional, security is global.
What happens in the Indo Pacific matters for Europe, for NATO, and what happens in Europe matters for the Indo Pacific.

And we see how the war in Ukraine has global ramifications. And I am very grateful for your support to Ukraine. That makes a difference.

I also welcome your support to different NATO missions and activities.
And I welcome the fact that we are now able to further strengthen our partnership also in areas like climate change, cyber and new technologies.

So I look forward to having you at the Summit, and also that we can now further strengthen our partnership.

Once again, welcome.