North Atlantic Treaty Organization
June 11, 2014
Directors of the NATO International Military Staff and European Union Military Staff met for an informal consultation
Heads of the NATO International Military Staff (IMS) and European Union Military Staff (EUMS) met 10 June at NATO Headquarters for the second time in 2014. The meeting was co-chaired by the Directors General (DG) of both organisations; Air Marshal Sir Christopher Harper (DGIMS) and Lieutenant General Wolfgang Wosolsobe (DGEUMS).
These informal staff-to-staff talks are part of the NATO-EU strategic military dialogue, which has been ongoing since 2003. The ultimate goal of this high level event is to continue improving the staff to staff interaction between IMS and EUMS on topics of common interest related to security, defence and crisis management.
In their opening remarks, the Director Generals stressed the importance of IMS-EUMS complementarity and encouraged the continuation of such staff-to-staff engagements since such events greatly contribute to the mutual awareness.
During the meeting both organisations presented ongoing works on which they can cooperate in order to ensure coherence, mutual reinforcement and non-duplication of effort. The last part of the meeting was devoted to an open discussion on current affairs.
Wrapping up the discussions, Air Marshal Harper stated that the current challenges faced by both NATO and EU call for a more coherent, efficient and improved relations, to enable the Organizations to provide effective responses to rapidly evolving crises. Both the IMS and EUMS leaderships underlined that NATO and EU, sharing the same values, interests, challenges and most of the same member states, are more than just partners; any possible effort to strengthen their relationship must be pursued.
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