The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, met yesterday in Madrid with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, to officially start the organization of the next Summit of the Alliance, which “Spain will host in Madrid on June 29 and 30, 2022”, according to Moncloa.
Stoltenberg met at the Moncloa Complex with Sánchez, with whom he later offered an institutional statement to the press -without questions- and held a lunch attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles. Hours earlier, the NATO Secretary General was received in audience by King Philip VI at the Zarzuela Palace, accompanied by Albares and the Ambassador Permanent Representative of Spain to the NATO Council, Miguel Ángel Fernández-Palacios Martínez, among other personalities.
“For Spain it is fundamental to strengthen relations between NATO and the European Union to reinforce the Alliance’s responsibility in the field of human security, covering aspects such as the fight against climate change and issues related to women, peace and the security agenda, which will be crucial for security and stability in the coming decades”, said Pedro Sánchez during the institutional declaration.
He also assured that the Government will “throw itself into” the Madrid Summit, which will be held at “a historic moment for NATO” and will coincide with the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into the Alliance, and in which the new NATO Strategic Concept will be adopted, which will allow “developing a common vision in the face of the new challenges and providing us with the necessary tools to defend that vision”.
Among these challenges, the President mentioned the worsening security situation in North Africa and the Sahel, for which he called on NATO to increase its commitment to Europe’s southern flank. Sánchez also stressed the importance of the public dimension in making the Summit a success, which is why, he announced, Spain will include a series of events with the presence of civil society to “be able to engage in an in-depth dialogue.”
“We have to face these challenges together, in the Sahel, in the Maghreb,” declared Jens Stoltenberg, who assured that “Spain continues to be a very valuable ally” that has made “very important contributions” to “shared security”. Examples of this, he said, are the Torrejón Operations Center, the training mission in Iraq or the air defense shield in Turkey.
