The European Union and NATO today started a new, important era of cooperation, by agreeing on a set of 42 concrete proposals in seven different areas identified by the joint declaration signed in Warsaw in July.
 
The proposals were developed jointly and endorsed today, in parallel, by the Foreign Ministers of NATO meeting in Brussels as well as the Council of the European Union.
 
“The decisions are… a major step forward. I would say that today we start a new important era in EU-NATO cooperation,” said High Representative Federica Mogherini when presenting the set to the press together with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
 
“We have 42 concrete proposals for implementation. That is exactly what we were mandated to do in the Joint Declaration we signed in Warsaw last July, based on constant political dialogue that made it possible for us and for our teams to work on a common set of proposals,” she continued.
 
“All the Member States of the European Union and Allies in NATO were extremely satisfied with the process so far. This is very encouraging for the next steps, because this is going to be only the beginning. Now we enter into the implementation phase as of tomorrow,” she added after she joined the NATO Foreign Ministers for a discussion.
 
“We could see very clearly today both on the EU and the NATO side full unity of all Allies and all EU Member States and commitment to a common set of values and shared interests across the Atlantic, and that is now more important than ever,” she also stressed.
 
For the European Union, the decision taken today is an integral and coherent part of a package to reinforce the European Union’s security and defence policy. “The EU-NATO cooperation is a fundamental pillar of this package,” said Mogherini.
 
The other two elements are the implementation of the Global Strategy in the field of security and defence, with the EU Foreign and Defence Ministers agreeing to in in mid-November, and the European Defence Action Plan that is focusing more on the industrial and research base of defence and was adopted by the European Commission last week.
 
“We see that our citizens are asking for security more and more. So we have a collective duty and responsibility to deliver on their security,” said the High Representative today.