• UK will host all
NATO leaders at 70th anniversary meeting
• Leaders will agree
further steps to strengthen NATO’s role in responding to current
and future threats.
• UK is the biggest
defence spender in Europe and contributes to every NATO
mission.
The Prime Minister will welcome leaders from 29 countries this
week for a meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of NATO – the
most successful military alliance in history, which protects a
billion people.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg invited the UK to host
this special anniversary meeting in recognition of the UK’s
significant role in the organisation’s history, with London home
to the Alliance’s first headquarters.
On Tuesday, Defence Secretary will address the official ‘NATO
Engages’ outreach event. That evening, The Queen will host
leaders for a reception at Buckingham Palace, ahead of a
reception at Downing Street. Also attending the reception at
Number 10 will be UK officials with connections to NATO and the
winners of the NCSC CyberFirst Girls Competition from the Tiffin
School.
On Wednesday, leaders will meet at the Grove Hotel in
Hertfordshire for the NATO Leaders’ Meeting. They will reflect on
the last 70 years and discuss issues affecting the Alliance
including NATO missions, member states’ spending and NATO’s role
in responding to threats around the world.
Members will also use the meeting to look ahead to new
challenges, including in the areas of cyber and space. Last month
NATO declared space one of its operational domains alongside air,
land, sea and cyber.
The UK has worked to put cyber and space on the NATO agenda in
recent years. We were the first NATO member to offer our
offensive cyber capabilities to NATO – which we’re doing through
the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre. And in July the UK
became the first country to join the US’s Operation Olympic
Defender which responds to hostile activity in space.
This is the first meeting of NATO Allies in the UK since the 2014
NATO Summit held in Wales. Following member states’ commitment at
that Summit to spend 2% of GDP on defence, European Allies’ and
Canada’s defence budgets are projected to increase by $400bn by
2024.
The UK is the biggest defence spender in Europe, and contributes
to every NATO mission. And British servicemen and women are
currently standing shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO Allies to
protect innocent people around the world and in the UK from the
forests of Estonia to the streets of Kabul.
Notes to Editors:
Leaders attending the summit are: Jens Stoltenberg (NATO
SG), Edi Rama (Albanian PM), Sophie Wilmes (Belgian PM), Ruman
Radev (Bulgarian President), Justin Trudeau (Canadian PM), Andrej
Plenkovic (Croatian PM), Miloš Zeman (Czech President), Mette
Frederiksen (Danish PM), Jueri Ratas (Estonian PM), Emmanuel
Macron (French PM), Angela Merkel (German Chancellor), Kyriakos
Mitsotakis (Greek PM), Viktor Orban (Hungarian PM), Katrin
Jakobsdottir (Icelandic PM), Giuseppe Conte (Italian PM), Egils
Levits (Latvian President), Gitanas Nauseda (Lithuanian
President), Xavier Bettel (Luxembourger Prime Minister), Duško
Marković (Montenegrin PM), Mark Rutte (Dutch PM), Zoran Zaev
(North Macedonia PM), Ema Solberg (Norwegian PM), Andrzej Duda
(Polish President), António Costa (Portuguese PM), Klaus Wener
Iohannis (Romanian President), Zuzana Caputova (Slovakian
President), Marjan Šarec (Slovenian PM), Pedro Sanchez (acting
Spanish PM), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkish President), Donald
Trump (United States President).
The NCSC CyberFirst Girls Competition aims to inspire girls
across the UK to consider a career in cyber security. The
competition involves teams of 12-13 year old girls taking on an
online round of codebreaking challenges, all related to the world
of cyber security. Registration for the CyberFirst Girls
Competition 2020 is now open at:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberfirst/girls-competition.
