Taormina, Italy 9 Feb. 2006

Opening remarks by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the Informal meeting of NATO Defence Ministers Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon. Let me start by thanking, on behalf of all the participants, our host Antonio Martino for his initiative and generosity in hosting this important meeting. I also wish to offer a particular welcome to Minister O’Connor of Canada, Minister Ligi of Estonia, Minister Jung of Germany, Minister Murniece of Latvia, Minister Størm-Erichsen of Norway, Minister Sikorski of Poland [and Minister Fedor of Slovakia ] who are participating in a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers for the first time. We are gathering informally today and tomorrow in this beautiful city of Taormina to take stock of NATO’s operations and to advance our preparations for the Summit to be held in Riga in November. This Summit should be a waymarker in the continuing evolution of the Alliance and we should use it to ensure that NATO is fit to respond to the political and operational challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. We should therefore use our meetings this year, culminating in the Summit, to ensure that the Alliance remains a flexible and effective instrument to safeguard the security of its members and to promote security and stability ever more broadly and widely. In the course of this year we will see two events which both symbolise and embody NATO’s new approach. Firstly, the expansion of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force into the southern provinces of Afghanistan. Who, even five years ago, would have thought NATO would be defending its values at the Hindu Kush? And secondly, the completion of our work to establish the NATO Response Force, a unique multinational force that will allow NATO to respond rapidly to a range of scenarios. Both these events are critical to our present and future roles, and our meeting here will allow us to consider both in depth. This afternoon we will focus on NATO’s transformation – our continuing work to ensure that our military and its hardware are fit for the Alliance’s increasingly varied and geographically widespread operations. We will discuss in particular what remains to be done to establish the NATO Response Force and prepare its first large-scale exercise this summer, in Cape Verde. We will also review what we are doing to ensure that, both individually and collectively, we are investing in the right military equipment, planning for the right missions, and adopting the right funding mechanisms to meet today’s needs. Finally, we will exchange views on how the Summit can help drive further significant progress in military capability improvements, such as strategic airlift, for an Alliance that will, I believe, be asked to undertake a range of different but always demanding operations in the years to come. We will devote our session tomorrow to a review of our extensive operations and missions – in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, and Darfur. We should also consider our recently concluded operation in Pakistan and the lessons we can learn for our future operations. We will also meet with our Russian colleague, Sergey Ivanov, for an informal meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. This session will allow us to discuss current operations, including Russian support to our maritime surveillance operation in the Mediterranean, Active Endeavour, to address other current international security issues, and to explore possibilities for additional practical cooperation. Defence Ministers of the Alliance will meet for the first time ever with their counterparts of the Mediterranean Dialogue countries tomorrow for a working luncheon designed to discuss ways and means to further enhance our practical cooperation in defence and security related issues. This gives us a busy agenda over the next two days and also over the coming months. Let me now turn to our host for his introductory remarks. Minister Martino, the floor is yours. Thank you. May I now invite the members of the press to leave the room?