NATO Secretary General Press Conference Ahead of the NATO Summit in Vilnius 7/07/23 Transcript

Good afternoon. The Secretary General will preview the Vilnius Summit and then he will take your questions. Secretary General.

Good afternoon. NATO heads of state and government will meet in Vilnius next week at the critical moment for our transatlantic security. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues to rage on. For 500 days, Moscow has brought death and destruction to the heart of Europe, seeking to destroy Ukraine and divide NATO. Our summit will send a clear message: NATO stands United and Russia’s aggression will not pay. At the summit, we will make Ukraine even more stronger and set out a vision for its future. I expect allied leaders will agree a package with three elements to bring Ukraine closer to NATO.

(01:05)
First, we will agree a multi-year program of assistance to ensure full interoperability between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and NATO. Second, we will upgrade our political ties by establishing the NATO Ukraine Council. And third, I expect allied leaders will reaffirm that Ukraine will become a member of NATO and unite on how to bring Ukraine closer to its goal.

(01:39)
Allies have already pledged 500 million euros for critical needs, including fuel, medical supplies, demining equipment, and platoon bridges. We will also help build Ukraine security and defense sector, including with military hospitals, and we will help Ukraine transition from Soviet era to NATO equipment and standards. President Zelenskyy will join us for the inaugural meeting of the new NATO Ukraine Council. This will be a platform for crisis consultation and decision making, where we all sit as equals to address shared security concerns.

(02:28)
At the summit, we will take further major steps to strengthen our [inaudible 00:02:32] on defense with three new regional defense plans to counter the two main threats to our alliance, Russia and terrorism, one plan for the north, the Atlantic and European Arctic, one for the center covering the Baltic region and Central Europe, and a southern plan for the Mediterranean and Black Sea. To execute these plans, NATO is putting 300,000 troops on high awareness, including substantial air and naval combat power.

(03:14)
I expect leaders will indulge a defense production action plan to aggregate demand, boost capacity, and increase interoperability. To do all of this, we need to invest more. At the summit, allies will set a more ambitious defense investment pledge to invest a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product annually on defense. Today, we are releasing new defense spending estimates.

(03:48)
In 2023, there will be a real increase of 8.3% across European allies and Canada. This is the biggest increase in decades and the ninth consecutive year of increases in our defense spending. So European allies and Canada will have invested over 450 billion extra US dollars since we agreed our defense investment pledge in 2014. Then only three allies spent 2% of GDP on defense. This year, 11 allies reach or exceed the target, and we expect this number will rise substantially next year.

(04:38)
At the summit, we will be joined by the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea because our security is not regional, it is global. So we are working more closely on issues such as cybersecurity, maritime security, and new technologies. We will also welcome the European Union to Vilnius. Our partnership has reached unprecedented levels and we are committed to doing even more together.

(05:08)
This will be Finland’s first summit as a NATO ally. I will look forward to Sweden joining as soon as possible. Yesterday, I hosted a constructive meeting of senior officials from Turkiye, Sweden, and Finland. And as the next step, I will meet with President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Kristersson in Vilnius on Monday afternoon. For almost 75 years, NATO has been the strongest alliance in history. The decisions we will take at the Vilnius Summit will ensure we continue to protect our people and our values. With that, I’m ready to take your questions.

Okay. We’ll start with Lithuanian TV here.

[inaudible 00:05:54] from Lithuania National Radio and Television. Thank you for this opportunity. I have two questions. The first one is Ukraine is calling 2008 Bucharest Declaration a historic mistake. How Vilnius declaration will be different from that? Because in 2008, the leader said that Ukraine will become a NATO member and it seems that you’re going to repeat this in 2023. So what’s the difference? And the other question is, have you heard something from President Zelenskyy? Will he participate in the summit? Thank you.

There are many differences. One important difference is, of course, that Ukraine has come much closer to NATO because NATO allies have worked closely with Ukraine for many years, especially since 2014. So this has ensured a much higher level of cooperation and interoperability between Ukraine and NATO. And I expect also that leaders, when they meet in Vilnius, they will also agree a package that will have to move Ukraine even closer to NATO, partly by establishing the NATO Ukraine Council, which is a political platform where we can have crisis consultations and also actually make decisions together and deepen our political cooperation.

(07:18)
The practical support [inaudible 00:07:20] a multi-year program also has a clear political dimension because, by agreeing to stand by Ukraine and also help them for the longer term, and to ensure full interoperability with NATO, we are helping Ukraine to come even closer to NATO and NATO membership.

(07:42)
And then finally, I am confident that we’ll find a united way also to address the specific issue on membership, but I will not go into the details of exact language now because that is something we will announce when everything is in place by the summit. I look forward to welcoming President Zelenskyy at the summit and to have him taking part in the first or the inaugural meeting of the NATO Ukraine Council.

Okay, ZDF.

Thank you very much. Florian Oihan from ZDFGM TV. Mr. Stoltenberg, first question would be, the US is actively considering, it says, to send a cluster munitions to Ukraine, which are banned from more than 120 states. From a military point of view, do you think this is a good idea? Does Ukraine need such munitions? And from a political point of view, do you think it’s wise to send weapons munitions that are banned for good reasons?

NATO, as an alliance, do not have a position on the convention on cluster munition because a number of allies have signed a convention, but a number of allies have not signed a convention. And it is for individual allies to make decisions on the delivery of weapons and military supplies to Ukraine. And so this will be for governments to decide, not for NATO as an alliance. We are faced with a brutal war and we have to remember that this brutality is also reflecting in the fact that we, every day, see casualties and that cluster munitions is used by both sides or cluster munitions are used by both sides. And Russia used cluster munitions in their brutal war aggression to invade another country while Ukraine is using it to defend itself. The best way to end this brutal war is for President Putin and Russia to stop attacking another country. That’s also the best way to stop all the suffering, the casualties, and the death we see caused by different types of weapons on the battlefield every day.

NTV?

Yes, Secretary General, [inaudible 00:10:34] from NTV Turkey. The meeting of yesterday with regard to Sweden was rather icebreaker between the Turkish side and the Swedish side. You said that it was constructive. However, when we see the statement of the Turkish Minister Foreign Affairs and his Swedish counterpart, there are still a gap. So how would you be able to bridge that gap until next Monday? And what kind of pressure, because you also call

.. call always on Turkey, but what kind of pressure you could do on Sweden so that they somehow try to face or at least release the concerns of Turkey. Thank you very much.

For me, I think words like constructive and good, it’s better than icebreaker if I’m going to describe the meeting we had yesterday, it was a good meeting. It was a constructive meeting, and we made progress and I’m confident that’ll continue to make progress, but there are still gaps to be bridged. And that’s also reason why I have invited President Erdogan and Prime Minister Krishan to meet on Monday, also in few days in villas. And we will meet there together, the three of with our experts to sit down and look into the details, the concrete issues, and where we see differences between the Swedish position and the position of Turkey. And then that’s the way to overcome differences when they exist, as they now do in the issue related to the final ratification of Swedish accession into NATO.

(12:21)
My message is that Sweden has delivered at the same time on the commitments they made in Madrid in the joint memorandum. At the same time, I’m also very clear that Turkey has real security concerns, and that’s the reason why we are sitting down and addressing them because we also know that NATO allies have serious security concerns related to the fact that they want to have Sweden in as a full member as soon as possible. And that’s not least the case for the Baltic countries that see the great advantage of having Sweden as a member. So I strongly believe it’ll be good for Sweden, it’ll be good for the Baltic region, Nordic region, and it’ll be also good for the whole alliance, including Turkey to have member soon as possible.

Interfax-Ukraine.

Yeah, thank you, Anna. [inaudible 00:13:25] Ukrainian News Agency, Interfax-Ukraine. I have follow up question on [inaudible 00:13:30] regarding declaration. I do understand you can’t comment on the language, which will be in the declaration regarding membership, but can you tell us how far or how close alliance are regarding a wording in the declaration regarding possible membership for Ukraine, which also will be satisfactory for Kiev? Thank you.

So we, as we always are head of a NATO summit now consulting and working on the exact language. That’s the way NATO makes decisions. We are 31 allies and we also of course having close contacts with Ukraine, but allies are now consulting on the exact language in the communique. I’m confident that we will find the united way forward, including on how to move Ukraine forward on its goal to become a member of the alliance. I also expect, as I said, that there will be decisions on concrete support, practical support, but that has a dimension also when it comes to the political aspects, because more interoperability, a multi-year program for interoperability between NATO forces and Ukrainian forces helps of course Ukraine to move towards NATO and stronger political ties with the NATO Ukraine Council. There’s also way to move Ukraine and NATO even closer. So the language, the exact wording will be made public when we have agreed and when the statement is endorsed by all the leaders next week.

(15:16)
But I’m confident that we’ll have a message which is clear and also not only clear, but most of all that we have to remember that allies also agree already on a lot of important principles when it comes to Ukraine and membership. We agree that NATO’s door is open. We agree that that Ukraine will become a member, which is an important message. And then we agree that it’s for the NATO allies and Ukraine to decide when the time is right and not for Russia to have a veto. And then the most urgent task, and all allies agree on that, is that we will stand by Ukraine. We will provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes, because unless Ukraine win this war, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all. And that’s the reason why allies are stepping up and providing donations, military support in an unprecedented way.

Bloomberg.

Hi, Natalia [inaudible 00:16:23] from Bloomberg. Thank you for the question. We continue to hear please, from Ukraine, for allies to send more artillery ammunition. Are you satisfied with what allies have sent and the state of their defense production?

So NATO allies are sending and have sent unprecedented levels of ammunition, many different types of ammunition, and they’re continuing to make new announcements, new donations, and although this is coordinated in a very good way, and that’s also reason why the Ukrainians have been able to retake land in the north, in east, and the south. And now some weeks ago, they were able to launch the offensive and the offensive is moving forward. They are able to liberate land. Then of course there’s a very high rate of consumption of ammunition in the military operations, which are going on now, thousands of shells every day. So it is an enormous need to resupply, and that’s exactly what allies are doing. They are resupplying constantly Ukraine with more ammunition, spare parts, maintenance for the different artillery systems, armored vehicles, battle tanks, air defenses, and so on. And that need will continue to be there, and therefore we need continued support and continued decision making as a strength in the NATO allied countries to make further decisions on even more support.

(18:02)
So yeah, I think that was your question about… No, sorry, production, because on production, well, what we have seen is that since we started to address this issue of the need to increase our production capacity last fall, then things have started to move. So now more and more allies are actually signing contracts. The things that can actually increase production is of course contracts with the industry. We engaged with the industry at our latest defense ministerial meeting. We have also worked on defense production action plan, which I expect allies to agree on both how to aggregate demand, how to make sure that we are buying things together. Joint procurement is a way to get up the numbers and therefore reduce the cost to utilize the economy of scale. We have done joint procurement in NATO for many, many years. We have the NATO support and procurement agency, which is now actually facilitating several big projects also for battle decisive ammunition.

(19:11)
We have increased the guidelines for how much battle decisive ammunition, which includes those, for instance, 1-55 ammunition, which is the most commonly used in the war in Ukraine or by the Ukrainians. We have increased the guidelines for how much of these type of ammunition allies should have, and we are also strengthening our work to standardize and to ensure that there’s full interchangeability. So NATO is addressing these issues, the need to ramp up production in many different ways using existing tools, using our mandate to set standards and guidelines, and the allies are now implementing and following up and production is going up.

Okay. Greek TV, then lady up there, thank you.

[inaudible 00:20:13] with Greek Public TV News Agency. Secretary General, you have mentioned lots of times that the 2% on defense spending is the floor, not the ceiling. Are the allies closer to reach a more concrete agreement and more concrete and obligatory agreement on this 2% on this target? Thank you.

The answer is yes. We have made good progress on also agreeing on new defense investment pledge where we regard 2% of GDP for defense, not as a ceiling, but a minimum, a floor. But as important as that, we are making progress and close to having all the details in place for new investment pledge is the fact that actually allies have stepped up. So this commitment is not only demonstrated in words, but also deeds and the new defense investment figures we released today for defense investments in 2023 are encouraging. They are positive, their biggest increase in decades, 8.3% increased defense spending across Europe and Canada. That is, in real terms, adjusted for inflation. That is something we haven’t seen across NATO for decades and deflects that NATO allies are taking this extremely seriously because to provide support to Ukraine, to sign long-term contracts for defense production with the defense industry to replenish our own stocks, to invest in more high end capabilities, there is a need for more money. And now the extra money is coming in with in total 450

… 50 billion since we made the Defence Investment Pledge, and only this year 8.3% increase.

(22:12)
That reflects that is something which is taken extremely seriously by Allies. Of course, still, we have way to go, and therefore I expect further increase next year. We expect this year 11 Allies to meet the 2% guideline, which is significantly more than when we made the guidelines in 2014. That was a decade pledge that will end in 2024. So next year, we expect substantially more Allies to meet the 2% target, and then to move on from there when we agree a new pledge at the Summit in Vilnius.

Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Thanks a lot. Thomas Gutschker, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Getting back to support to Ukraine: Two questions, please. The first one on the Comprehensive Action Plan: You said that Allies have pledged 500 million euros. Is that for one year, and are Allies ready to commit to 500 million on a multi-year basis? And the second question, on bringing Ukraine closer to NATO: What would it mean in practical terms if the MAP requirements were dropped? Thank you.

We are now finalizing the text and decisions on both these issues, so therefore, I’m a bit careful to go into the details. You will see all the details on both the questions you asked within a few days. And I think it will only make my task of leading the process, and to ensure that we end on a strong and united position on these issues more difficult if I now, at this press conference, went into the exact details of the language and the wording and the different alternatives which are now addressed.

(24:25)
But I can say that I’m confident that when we finalize these consultations, and have the decisions in place by the Summit, we will see that there is a strong commitment from NATO Allies to provide substantial sustained economic support to Ukraine, both as NATO through the Comprehensive Assistance Package for the different specific purposes, like fuel and the different types of equipment, but also for the multi-year program to ensure that Ukraine transitions from Soviet-era to NATO standards and doctrines, the full interoperability.

(25:12)
And on the Membership Action Plan: I will not go into the details, but the reality is that, with all the different programs, with the NATO-Ukraine Council, with the multi-year program for interoperability, we will move Ukraine closer to NATO, and that will help us to also move on the issue of sending a positive message also on the membership question.

ANSA.

Thank you for the opportunity. I’m Mattia Bagnoli, ANSA. Mr. Secretary General, we have been hearing lately warring signals both from Russia and Ukraine on possible provocation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Would a Chernobyl type accident with radioactive clouds impacting NATO country be considered a possible trigger for Article Five. Has that message being sent to Moscow?

I think that first of all, I think it is important to understand that wars are, by nature, dangerous and also unpredictable. And, of course, we are monitoring and following very closely the situation also around Zaporizhzhia and the nuclear power plant there. We also strongly welcome the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency is monitoring closely. They have their experts following the situation. And this is important because Zaporizhzhia power plant is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency have a responsibility. They have a mandate. We support that, when it comes to ensure that regulations and safety standards are fully upheld.

(27:20)
That is of course a big challenge in the war zone. And, therefore, Russia has a particular responsibility. The best and the message from NATO and from the IAEA is that Russia should not launch any attacks from the power plant. They should not, of course, attack the power plant and they should withdraw their forces. That will enable the experts to do their work in a better way. They have had access and have made some judgments and some assessments. They have said that they have seen no visible indication of mines or explosives at this stage. But they’ve also asked for additional access to verify the safety of the plant. So we continue to call on Russia to withdraw from the facility and ensure the Ukrainian and international experts have full access. We continue to monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency continue to monitor and we call on Russia to withdraw its forces.

Ukrainian news agency.

[inaudible 00:28:36], National News Agency of Ukraine. Thank you for the floor. I just want to hear just: will security guarantees for a future be on the agenda in the Vilnius Summit? And if I may about the future membership. Both Ukraine and NATO members agreed that issue of membership could be considered after the war is over. Would not it be an incentive for Russia to continue this war endlessly? And don’t you think that the best security guarantee for Ukraine is to ensure the NATO membership? Thank you.

The most important thing now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails and that President Putin and Russia do not win this war. And therefore, the most urgent task is the military support to Ukraine. Also knowing that the more land Ukraine is able to liberate, the stronger their hand will be eventually to be at the negotiating table, to find a peaceful, enduring, and just end to this war.

(29:45)
When the war ends, then it is important, of course, that we have the frameworks in place to ensure that Russia, President Putin, not only rests his forces, retrains them, reallocates them, rearm them and then re-attack at the later stage. That is actually a lasting and enduring peace. And to ensure that, we need frameworks in place to provide Ukraine with what they need to ensure that Russia is not going to attack again. And that’s exactly what Allies are discussing, that’s part of the discussion on the membership issue within NATO.

(30:28)
And as I said, I’m confident that we’ll find a united way forward as NATO Allies on Ukraine’s request for membership. We will also, I expect, make some concrete decisions on interoperability and all the things that will help Ukraine to move closer to NATO. Then, it is also publicly known and it has been announced by several Allies that there are bilateral and actually some multilateral consultations with Ukraine on different types of security arrangements. And I welcome also those efforts. We have been briefed about them and it will just complement and underpin the efforts of NATO answer as an alliance. The message is, of course, that we take our decisions as sovereign independent nations together with Ukraine. So it’s not for Russia, to make any decisions, to have any veto. And again, we help Ukraine to win this war by providing military support and we’ll continue to do that.

Okay. Reuters.

Andrew Gray from Reuters. Secretary General, could you tell us some more about the NATO-Ukraine Council and perhaps put it in concrete terms for an ordinary citizen who doesn’t follow this stuff super closely? In particular, what kind of powers might it have? Would Ukraine be able to convene a meeting if it wants to do that? And could it be a forum for sharing intelligence for example?

The NATO-Ukraine Council will be a council, which is formed by the 31 NATO Allies, hopefully soon 32 Allies with Sweden, but now 31 NATO Allies and Ukraine. And we will be together in the council as equals. And we will agree, what you call modalities on how and how often this council will meet, but I expect that we will agree modalities that also then ensures that individual members of the council, and that includes also, of course, Ukraine, can call a meeting to have

… what we call crisis consultations. That is if they feel threatened in any way and or they see any need for urgent consultations, then they can invoke this crisis consultation mechanism between the NATO allies and the Ukraine as members of the council. Then the council can also make decisions and it’s fundamentally for the council to decide what decisions they can make. But this opens up for more practical joint activities, it opens also up for establishing subcommittees to address specific tasks, issues, be it cyber, be it, I don’t know, interoperability, that’s up to the council to decide. And for instance, a work program.

(33:58)
So the whole idea is that by establishing that, we establish a body where we actually do things together, decides things together, consult together on issues that matters for our security. And that brings, again, Ukraine closer to NATO and it provides Ukraine and all of us with a tool that we can use to do more together and strengthen the cooperation and the ties between Ukraine and all the NATO allies. So this will bring Ukraine closer to NATO, it will be good for Ukraine and good for NATO. And the inaugural meeting will be next week in Vilnius.

Dol Chebela.

[inaudible 00:34:39] Fernando Dol Chebela. Just a follow-up on the cluster bombs, Germany has already said that they are opposing giving cluster bombs to Ukraine. We understand that they could help Ukraine advance with their offensive, but if the US indeed decides to send them, is there not a risk that we could see first cracks in NATO’s unity with regards to that topic? Thank you.

Well, it is for individual allies to make decisions on what type of weapons, all allies agree that we should deliver weapons, ammunition to Ukraine and allies are delivering an unprecedented level of military support to Ukraine. And of course Germany, there are many other allies are delivering different types of ammunition weapons, to Ukraine. But when it comes to cluster ammunition, there is a difference between allies, because some allies have signed the convention on cluster ammunitions and they don’t have the cluster ammunition. So of course there is no cluster ammunitions to provide to Ukraine. Other allies have not signed the convention and many of them, or at least some of them have cluster ammunitions. So it is for these individual allies then to make those decisions. NATO as the alliance doesn’t have a position on the convention, simply because there are different views among allies on the convention and then also any possession of cluster ammunitions.

(36:17)
Cluster ammunitions are only used in the war in Ukraine, by both sides. The difference is that Russia is using cluster ammunition to attack, to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is using cluster ammunition to protect itself against an aggressor and all allies, regardless of whether they have signed the convention on cluster ammunition, agree that we should provide military support to Ukraine as we do, also Germany. But exactly what type of weapons, what type of ammunition varies between allies and will continue to vary between allies.

Okay. I think we have one last question from Georgian TV. Over there, just above you.

Georgian TV, Rustavi 2, Tamarun Subize. Can we expect some kind of messages and videos regarding [inaudible 00:37:20] countries for Georgia, for example? Thank you.

Well, our message has been for a long time and was reiterated at the previous summit that we need to strengthen our partnership with partners that are vulnerable for Russian interference and pressure. And at the summit, allies will reiterate our support to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders. Allies will also, I expect, reaffirm Georgia’s right to decide its own future and foreign policy, free from outside intervention. Therefore, we call on Russia to withdraw its forces it has in Georgia without any consent from the Georgian government and to end its recognition and [inaudible 00:38:26] of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And I think also, we had to recognize once again the importance that Georgia plays in also strengthening the partnership between NATO and Georgia and the commitment to Euro-Atlantic security. So we will address also other partners than Ukraine. Of course Ukraine will be at the top of the agenda, because there’s a full-fledged war taking place in Ukraine, but we will also address the importance of strengthening our partnership with a country, like Georgia.

Thank you very much.

Follow up on council, thank you.

Sorry?

Follow up on council.

On the council.

Yeah.

Okay. Herena, one last follow up. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Joanna. Just follow up on the NATO-Ukraine council. In the past, Hungarian constantly were blocking NATO-Ukraine Commission. Do you think that Hungarian again or other ally will have a right to block such meetings? And do you think it’s really fair upgrade for Ukrainians to have a council, while NATO-Russia council still exist?

So first of all, the fact that we establish the NATO-Ukraine council demonstrates that all allies and also Hungary is in favor of that, because that’s the way we make decisions. Second, we have the modalities that will ensure that we can convene the meeting and we will of course continue to… When we start to have meetings in NATO-Ukraine council, I’m absolutely confident we’ll continue to have meetings also in the future.

Thank you very much. This concludes this press conference.