Minister Krstičević attends NATO defence ministers meeting

During the 26 October session,  Minister Krstičević underlined Croatia’s declared commitment to active participation to NATO enhanced forward presence and the intended contribution with a company-sized unit of the Croatian Armed Forces, to be attached to the German-led battalion stationed in Lithuania.

NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg said NATO’s responsibility was to protect almost one billion of citizens, stating: “our forces will be truly multinational, sending a strong message: NATO stands as one. An attack on any of the Allies is considered an attack on all“, said the Secretary General in his address“.

The heads of state and government of NATO nations agreed on a series of decisions at the Warsaw summit, focussed on enhanced deterrence and defence and the projected stability in NATO’s neighbourhood, in response to the changed security environment in the region. One of the decisions referred to the deployment of four Allied battalions in the territory of the eastern NATO countries –  Lithuania,  Latvia, Estonia and Poland, which will be led by four countries – Canada, FR Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In addition to the enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states and Poland, NATO had agreed on enhanced proportionate presence in the Black Sea region. 
Later on the ministers discussed the projected stability beyond NATO borders, with the emphasis on the situation in Iraq, and stepped up the support for the Counter-ISIL Coalition. They welcomed the decision on the provision of direct support to the Coalition with AWACS surveillance aircraft as of 20 October 2016. The ministers also decided on continued overall programme of enhancement of Iraqi defence capacities and in-country training of Iraqi security forces as of January 2017.

Addressing the security in the Mediterranean, the ministers adopted the decision on the new NATO-led operation “SEA GUARDIAN“, to provide support to the EU-led operation “Sophia“ , which constitutes a further progress in the security co-operation of the two organisations and is excepted to come into effect in the following two weeks.
The meeting of 27 October was joined by the ministers of Sweden and Finland and the High EU Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. The ministers were briefed on the progress achieved and the timeline of the implementation of enhanced NATO – the EU co-operation. The Joint NATO-EU Declaration signed at the Warsaw Summit has further enhanced the co-operation between the two organisations, and highlighted the benefit of closer NATO-EU co-operation.

The practical measures to forward the co-operation, to be proposed by December 2016, include the countering of hybrid threats, cyber defence, maritime security and co-ordinated exercises (both NATO and the EU). 

The Republic of Croatia (as NATO and the EU member) welcomes the joint efforts in the enhanced NATO-EU co-operation, particularly in the domain of maritime security, as exemplified in the successful co-operation in curbing the human trafficking in the Aegean Sea earlier this year. Croatia also underlined the need for complementarity of the defence efforts of the two organisations, favouring  the overall strengthening of the European defence capacities.

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