The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos participates in NATO Defence Ministers’ Meeting which is held in Brussels, on June 24-25.

The main topic of the Meeting is to examine the progress of the implementation of NATO Readiness Action Plan which was adopted during the Summit in Wales, and to set guidelines in view of the next NATO Summit in Warsaw in 2016.

The Ministers made a number of decisions for the reinforcement and transformation of the Alliance and they confirmed the very good readiness level of the new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force which will take part in the common exercise ΝΑΤΟ TRIDENT JUNCTURE to be held in Italy, Spain and Portugal, next autumn.

The Minister of National Defence stressed that NATO is not only influenced by the developments in the east, and that the developments in the south have come as complex direct threats which NATO has to confront in an immediate manner, by applying the Readiness Action Plan in this area. He submitted the proposal for a NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) to be established on Crete, which NATO Secretary General Mr. Jens Stoltenberg kept in mind. The Minister also briefed his counterparts on the intention to transfer the air activities from Souda to Karpathos. The reinforcement of NATO South Wing was welcomed with interest by the member-states and they decided to intensify their efforts towards this direction over the next months.

The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos met with the Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom Michael Fallon and he addressed him an official invitation to visit Greece.

He will also meet with Canada’s Minister of National Defence Jason Kenney.

The Minister of National Defence and Leader of the Independent Hellenes party Panos Kammenos had a meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras about the developments of the negotiations with the institutions.