On 4 March Defence Minister Dr.Imre Szekeres received in his office two members of the Group of Experts on NATO’s new Strategic Concept, Ambassador Marie Gervais-Vidricaire and Ambassador Fernando Perpiná-Robert Peyra. Mr. Pablo Gutiérrez Segú, personal assistant to Ambassador Peyra also attended the talks. József Bali, MoD State Secretary for Defence Policy, NATO Ambassador István Kovács and Deputy Head of Department Col. Antal Szöllősi were also present at the meeting held in the Ministry of Defence. The guests also met with Gen. (Eng.) László Tömböl, Chief of the MoD HDF Defence Staff.

The new Strategic Concept must place emphasis on NATO’s commitment to collective territorial defence, which continues to be the core task of the Alliance. Article 5 is the most effective guarantee of peace in the Euro-Atlantic region. NATO must remain the transatlantic community’s foremost institutional expression and the first pillar of the Euro-Atlantic security structure, so no one should be allowed to question the Alliance’s place and role in any way.

Nowadays the concept of security is being given an increasingly comprehensive interpretation, and we need to provide political answers to a range of newly emerging issues including cyber and energy security. Therefore, we need to reinforce solidarity within the Alliance through political dialogue, which is the means specified in Article 4 of the Washington Treaty. Besides ensuring territorial defence and deterrence, military capabilities symbolize the indivisible nature of NATO’s security, and the nuclear policy of the Alliance plays a pivotal role in this regard, just like the development of a common missile defence system.

We all agree that NATO’s Open Door policy must continue. Although Europe’s security environment has undergone a dramatic change over the last 20 years, Article 10 of the Washington Treaty has not diminished in importance at all. We need to send a clear and positive message to the countries of the Western Balkans, one reflecting the spirit of our Open Door policy. Creating and sustaining security and stability lays great responsibility on NATO in the coming years as well. Any country that meets the membership criteria should be given the opportunity to become a fully-fledged member of the Alliance.

The cooperation between NATO and the EU should be topping NATO’s agenda of action in the years to come. We must benefit from the clear advantages offered by real cooperation, which range from the feasible use of resources to the coordination of our responses to security challenges. NATO’s different systems of partnership are gaining in importance as the security challenges are becoming global. These partnerships must be based on a joint vision for the future and our common interests that are being threatened by the challenges we all face.

Many NATO member countries cannot afford to develop or purchase the full spectrum of necessary equipment on their own, so the Alliance must seek new solutions to cope with potential capability shortfalls. In the field of capability development we need to place great emphasis on exploring the potentials for multinational cooperation. The ambition level of the Alliance provides us with the main guidelines of capability development. Military capabilities are a means for NATO to attain its most important objectives, and we know that credible political ambitions must be supported by credible capabilities. The foregoing is a brief summary of Hungary’s standpoint.