At their meeting in Bratislava on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 September, EU member states’ defence ministers will discuss how to make the security and defence aspects of the EU’s new global strategy operational, based on recent Franco-German proposals (see EUROPE 11623).
After a dinner on Monday evening, the ministers will meet on Tuesday for three working sessions chaired by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, two of which will be attended by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The outcome of this meeting is expected to be tangible projects that might be adopted at a meeting of ministers on 15 November and submitted to the European summit in December.
The first sitting at the Bratislava meeting will consider implementation of the global strategy in the domain of security and defence. One objective is to ensure good synchronisation of the implementation of this strategy with the discussions on capability development, research and defence markets included in the European defence action plan that is due to be unveiled by the European Commission.
The second sitting, to be attended by Stoltenberg, will be devoted to EU-NATO cooperation based on a joint statement initialled on the fringes of a summit in Warsaw on 8 July. Seven areas of cooperation were identified and it is aimed to have tangible projects by the end of the year (see EUROPE 11590).
The EU’s operations in the Sahel and off the coast of Libya will be the focus of the last sitting, where Stoltenberg and the ministers will discuss central Mediterranean naval missions (EUNAVFOR Med Sophia), which are soon to be backed by NATO, and the strategic concept of "regionalisation" of EU support for security in the Sahel, which is currently being drawn up by the European External Action Service. This will initially amount to improving cooperation among existing missions and gradually extending their work and opening up to other countries in the region as part of cooperation with the G5 Sahel. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)