NATO HQ 12 June 2003

Statement by Peter Struck, Minister of Defence of Germany at the Multinational Capability Projects Signing Ceremony during the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Defence Ministers session At the Prague Summit eleven Defence Ministers signed a "Statement of Intent". This was an important step in our efforts to close the Alliance's recognized capability gap in the field of Strategic Airlift. At that ceremony I declared that our aim was not only to close that gap in the long term but to do so in the shortest possible time. I also pointed out that the success of this initiative will depend to a large extent on the active participation of the signatory nations. I am therefore pleased that, as a result of the concentrated work by our Ministries over the past months, we are taking another major step towards our aim today by signing the "Letter Of Intent". Our declared common objective is to put in place, by 2005, an operational airlift capacity for an On-Call Availability Charter using the Antonov 124 without, however, excluding the possibility of a mixed solution with the C-17. To maintain the present momentum of our work and to achieve this ambitious goal in the next two years, we want next month to establish a multinational programme organization, so as to approach the next steps in a committed fashion. I am confident that together we will achieve that goal, and I want to thank you once again for the highly constructive cooperation provided by your staff members. Thank you. Lord Robertson: Thank you very much for that, Peter. And I... just in case the arithmetic did not get across, 11 nations signed the Statement of Intent at Prague; 12 nations are going to sign the Letter of Intent today, so I think that shows the degree of momentum and indeed, the degree of success that you have had in leading this consortium. So we will sign the letters now. (Signing) I think this highlights what I said at Prague, that we're about decisions and not just declarations. And delivering these aircraft is going to be the critically important matter. The reason I'm not moving on to the next set of brief speeches is because I want every Minister to get a proper share of publicity for signing this letter of intent and I also want to have a complete collection of all of you signing it as well, which might come in handy later on. (Laughter) Thank you very much. I think that's a significant milestone in achieving what is one of our biggest shortfalls in capabilities.