8 Oct 2003

Explanatory Note on Signing of Letters of Intent News 8-9/10/2003 - NATO Informal Defence Ministers Meetings, Colorado Springs At the NATO Summit meeting held in Prague last November, the Heads of State and Government launched the Prague Capabilities Commitment to ensure that the Alliance will in the future have the military capabilities required for the full range of its missions. This initiative involves both specific national undertakings to remedy shortfalls in key operational areas and also multinational projects to explore ways of acquiring capabilities that individual Allies would find it difficult to develop on their own of particular importance. Among these multinational projects are a German-led effort to provide the Alliance with an interim capability in the crucial area of strategic airlift and a Spanish-led effort to establish a multinational fleet of air-to-air-refueling tankers. At today’s meeting, a number of Allies who had previously signed a statement of intent with respect to air-to-air refueling, will take a further step and sign a letter of intent. Similarly, Spain will join the strategic airlift project by signing the relevant letter of intent.