NATO News

The leaders of NATO’s 30 member countries arrived at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on Monday (14 June 2021) to participate in the NATO Summit. They took part in a welcome ceremony featuring a multimedia tower display. The display showed visualisations illustrating NATO’s future adaptation through the NATO 2030 agenda.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed US President Joe Biden to the NATO Summit in Brussels on Monday (14 June 2021).

Today (14 June 2021), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg opened the “NATO 2030 at Brussels Forum” event. He said that the NATO Summit will open a new chapter in our transatlantic relationship and demonstrate the importance of Europe and North America standing together.

Arriving at the NATO Summit on Monday (14 June 2021), Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the meeting would be a pivotal moment for the Alliance and a time to “open a new chapter in our transatlantic relations.” Mr Stoltenberg laid out a full agenda for the meeting, including NATO’s relations with Russia, which he said were “at its lowest point since the Cold War because of Russia’s pattern of aggressive behaviour”, as well as China, which offers opportunities but “also poses some challenges to our security”.

Advanced technologies are rapidly transforming the world – including the security landscape – and are one of the major agenda items of the 2021 NATO Summit in Brussels and the NATO 2030 initiative. With support from NATO’s Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme, civilian scientists and research institutions in NATO member and partner countries are working together to mitigate risks and embrace opportunities presented by advanced technologies, including emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs) such as quantum and autonomous systems.

NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană marked the inauguration of the Military Women’s Training Center in Jordan in a virtual address on 7 June 2021.

NATO collects defence expenditure data from Allies and publishes it on a regular basis. Each Ally's Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure according to an agreed definition of defence expenditure. The amounts represent payments by a national government actually made, or to be made, during the course of the fiscal year to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of Allies or of the Alliance. In the figures and tables that follow, NATO also uses economic and demographic information available from the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (DG ECFIN), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg previewed the 14 June NATO Summit in an online press conference on Friday (11 June 2021), calling the gathering of 30 world leaders a “pivotal moment for our Alliance and for our collective security”.

Local landmarks will be emblazoned in NATO colours on the eve of the NATO Summit in Brussels (on 14 June). The leaders of the Alliance’s 30 countries are meeting at the alliance’s headquarters, to set an ambitious agenda for transatlantic security in a competitive world through their NATO 2030 initiative.

This week (8 June 2021), Poland delivered medical equipment and supplies, including facemasks, protective gloves and suits, to Iraq in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) and Poland coordinated this support made possible by Poland’s donation to the NATO stockpile.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday (10 June 2021), ahead of the NATO Summit.

On 04 June 2021, DGIMS hosted the NATO Committee on Gender Perspectives (NCGP) Handover/Takeover (HOTO). After two years as Chair of the NCGP, Lieutenant Colonel Corine Van Nieuwburg-Hofte (Netherlands) handed over to Chair-Elect Lieutenant Colonel Diana Morais (Portugal). The event will mark the 60th Anniversary of the integration of gender perspective within the Alliance, with the Netherlands as a founding Nation of the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces (CWINF). The small ceremony was an opportunity to wholeheartedly thank Lt Col Van Nieuwburg-Hofte and the Netherlands for their contributions toward increasing awareness of gender perspective within the Alliance over the past decades.

On Friday, 11 June 2021, the NATO Secretary General will brief the press ahead of the meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government, taking place at NATO Headquarters on Monday, 14 June 2021.

Defence Ministers from 10 NATO countries on Wednesday (9 June 2021) agreed to bolster the training of their nation’s military pilots, taking advantage of new technologies such as virtual reality.

During the second day of his visit to Washington D.C. on Tuesday (8 June 2021), Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with members of the U.S. Congress, including the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Gerry Connolly; Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks; and several U.S. Senators.

I welcome the decision by the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals to affirm the conviction of Ratko Mladic. It is right that he is being held accountable for his outrageous crimes against civilians, including the murder of thousands of Bosnian men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington D.C. on Monday (7 June 2021), to discuss preparations for the upcoming NATO Summit on 14 June. The Secretary General thanked President Biden for his leadership and the “powerful commitment” of the United States to NATO, saying that he welcomed the President’s “strong message on the importance of alliances.” Mr Stoltenberg said they agreed on the importance of strengthening NATO in a more competitive world, and that the ambitious decisions to be taken under the NATO 2030 initiative will prepare the Alliance for the future.