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Good morning and welcome to this NATO-Russia Council meeting of Defence Ministers, which takes place just over a year after our Heads of State and Government created this new Council at their Rome Summit. This Council was created as a forum in which the twenty member states could meet and cooperate as equal partners, facing shared threats and challenges.
The NATO-Russia Council exists because, in today’s rapidly globalising and interdependent world, NATO Allies and Russia need each other more than ever before. If we stand together, the states represented around this table have the potential to defeat any threat the world has to throw at them. It is up to you the nations to realise this potential.
The 20 leaders gave us an ambitious agenda and they asked us to develop a depth of cooperation unprecedented in our history.
There have been remarkable achievements in the defence and military field over the last year – in the struggle against terrorism for example, in practical military-to-military links, and in our work related to defence reform and theatre missile defence.
Over the past month, there have been two main opportunities to celebrate this anniversary and to welcome publicly the significant achievements of the NRC. First we had the Ambassadorial-level meeting last month in Moscow, and then we had the Foreign Ministers’ meeting last week in Madrid. The statement of the NRC Foreign Ministers in Madrid gave a full account of NRC achievements since the Rome Summit and I do not want to just repeat that this morning.
Now it is the turn of Defence Ministers, who bear the main responsibility for a lot of the substance of our cooperation in this new Council. I believe we can show a real sense of determination to drive our work forward and address the future direction of our cooperation. Defence Ministers need to give clear and specific directions to the NATO-Russia Council about the pace and shape of our future defence-related cooperation.
Ministers will also want to take the opportunity of today’s meeting to exchange views on the current international situation and their common security concerns, particularly relating to the struggle against terrorism.
The very existence of this NATO-Russia Council is evidence that the twenty countries represented on it share common strategic interests in protecting against new threats and in supporting the international community’s efforts to maintain stability. Defence Ministers have special responsibilities in this context. Which is precisely why this meeting is so important.