Opening remarks

Good morning to all of you, it’s good to see you.
Welcome to this meeting of NATO Defence Ministers.

Today we will take forward the decisions taken at the Vilnius Summit last July, to further strengthen our deterrence and defence.

With new plans, improved Command and Control, streamlined logistics, and strengthened Air and Missile Defence.

We will address our defence industrial capacity.
We are ramping up production of much needed weapons and ammunition. For Ukraine’s security, and for ours.

All of this required us to invest more, and we are making good progress.
Last year, we saw an unprecedented increase in defence spending across European Allies and Canada. And this year, a record number of Allies are spending 2% or more on defence.

This ends the public part of the meeting, I thank the media for joining us.