The Diplomat
The Alcázar Military Residence, in Madrid, will host the thirty-eighth meeting of the Steering Committee of the 5+5 Defense Initiative between March 6 and 7, which will mark the first high-level meeting of the current Spanish presidency of this meeting forum informal between countries of the Western Mediterranean.
The event will be attended by delegations from the Ministries of Defense of the ten countries that make up the 5+5 Defense Initiative (Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Mauritania, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia) and will be chaired by Major General Ramón Armada Vázquez, General Advisor to the Secretary General of Defense Policy for transversal security and defense challenges.
During these two days, as reported in mid-February by the Ministry of Defense in a press release, the participants are expected to monitor the military cooperation activities planned in the Action Plan for this year, begin the programming of the Plan of Action for the year 2025 and supervise the actions of the academic bodies that make up the Initiative, such as the 5+5 Defense College and the Euro-Maghrebi Center for Research and Strategic Studies (CEMRES by its French acronym).
“This high-level meeting represents the first relevant milestone of the Spanish Presidency of the 5+5 Defense Initiative, during which an ambitious plan of up to 74 multilateral activities will be executed (twelve of them organized by Spain) in various areas. , such as maritime and air security, cyber defense, health in operations or gender perspective in operations abroad,” highlighted the Ministry.
Spain currently holds the annual rotating presidency of the 5+5 Defense Initiative, a forum for dialogue and cooperation in the field of defense and security between ten countries of the Western Mediterranean, divided into two groups of five: on the one hand, five countries from the northern shore (Spain, France, Italy, Malta and Portugal) and, on the other, five from the southern shore (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia).
The initiative was established in 2004 at the proposal of France and within the framework of the 5+5 Dialogue – an informal forum of the countries of the region, active since 1990 -, with the objective of developing multilateral cooperation in the Western Mediterranean in areas such as maritime security, aviation security, search and rescue at sea, support for civil authorities in disaster situations, training, research, special operations, cyber defense and humanitarian demining.
Over the years, the 5+5 Defense Initiative has evolved to include a wide range of activities, such as joint military exercises, expert meetings, seminars and workshops on specific security topics, and cooperation projects in areas such as surveillance maritime, search and rescue, and civil protection. Attention has also been paid to emerging issues, such as cybersecurity and energy security.
Last December, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, explained in Lisbon – during the event in which she received the baton from Portugal – that the Spanish presidency of the Initiative would focus on twelve activities, among which the execution of an important rescue and rescue exercise, led by the Air and Space Army, and another maritime security exercise led by the Navy.
