The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, and Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, reaffirmed the importance and vigour of the cooperation between the Alliance and the Union in areas such as military mobility, which was described as “fundamental cooperation”, with a meeting of the defence ministers of the NATO member countries held at the new headquarters of the military organisation on Friday 8th June.
At a symposium hosted by the European Defence Agency (EDA) the day before, the High Representative said that military mobility was a “pressing need for our collective security, in these times of 'predictable unpredictability'”.
Following the ministerial meeting attended by Mogherini, Stoltenberg stressed that “military mobility will become a flagship in our cooperation”.
The cooperation to overcome the physical, legal and bureaucratic obstacles to the mobility of military capabilities has become one of the strengths of EU/NATO cooperation. A specific expert group was set up by the EDA in autumn 2017 to discuss the matter with NATO experts. The results of work have been collated in the annual report on the implementation of the common positions and published on 31 May.
On Friday, the Council of the EU welcomed this third report.
Stoltenberg also expressed his hopes of signing a new declaration with the Presidents of the Commission and of the Council of the EU ahead of the NATO summit of 11 and 12 July, to define the way forward in deepening cooperation with the European Union.
The report is available at: https://bit.ly/2sHnGhX . (Original version in French by Carmen García, intern)