Opening remarks

Good morning. Welcome back. I think we are ready to start. Today, our discussion will focus on our continued efforts to strengthen our deterrence and defence. At the Vilnius summit in July, we took major steps to further strengthen our defences, including with new and more ambitious regional plans for the defence of Europe.  Now we must fully implement our decisions. This includes investing more in defence. Eleven Allies now reach or exceed the 2% targets. And I expect this number will rise substantially next year. In our contested and competitive world, there is no doubt NATO is ready, willing, able to defend every Ally. This concludes the public part of the meeting. I thank the media for joining us at the top of the meeting.