Doorstep

by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg prior to the informal meeting of EU Ministers of Defence, Tallinn, Estonia

  • 07 Sep. 2017 -
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  • Last updated: 07 Sep. 2017 12:49

(As delivered)

Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the start of the Informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers in Tallinn

Good morning. First of all it’s good to be back in Tallinn and to meet with EU Defence Ministers. I look forward to meet all of them and in particular to discuss cyber and how together we can respond to the many cyber threats we are faced with.

I look forward to participate in the cyber exercise together with the EU Defence Ministers. That’s the first time I participate in the cyber exercise with the EU, and I’m also glad to announce that NATO has decided to upgrade the EU participation in our cyber exercise which is going to take place later on this year. It’s called Cyber Coalition and it’s one of the biggest cyber exercises in the world and the EU will participate fully in that cyber exercise. We are faced with many challenges in the cyber domain. In the last year we saw a 60% increase in the number of cyber attacks against NATO networks and it is important with the EU to defend also our Allies and our members against many different kinds of cyber attacks. So timely exchange of information, harmonising our procedures is key to respond to any kind of cyber attacks. So we saw that also this spring with the two major or big cyber attacks where NATO and EU worked closely together, our experts exchanged information and helped each other in our response to these major cyber attacks. So we will step up our efforts. I look forward to working closely with the EU and also discuss with the EU ministers how we can further strengthen NATO-EU cooperation in general.

Q1. Unidentified journalist: Mr. Secretary General, later today ministers will talk about North-Korea. Are you concerned that Russia is resisting further sanctions on North-Korea?

A1. Secretary General: There are already sanctions agreed in the UN and it’s extremely important that all those sanctions are fully implemented because the North-Korean behavior is a global threat and requires a global response, a united global response. Therefore we call on North-Korea to fully comply with all the UN resolutions to abandon its nuclear and missile programs and to refrain from further testing and to engage in a constructive dialogue and then that the whole global society fully implements the UN resolutions on sanctions.

Q2.  Unidentified journalist: In the cyber attack story line there is also an anti-globalisation group mentioned as potential threat. You see this as a threat that NATO needs to deal with?

A2. Secretary General: No, we don’t have any specific groups which we have pointed out as threats or enemies. We are ready to defend ourselves against any cyber attack, coming from government, and state and non-state actors. So we have not identified any specific group as an enemy or a threat.