On September 25, 2020, the Ministers of Defence of Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom met via videoconference, in the third annual European Intervention Initiative (EI2) meeting.
At the meeting, hosted by Portugal, the Ministers of Defence assessed the work done during 2020 by the Working Groups, the Military European Strategic Talks (MEST) and the Strategic Dialogue, as well as the results of the Seminar on Resilience and Strategic Anticipation post-COVID, which have given the chance to reflect on how to reinforce resilience in a pandemic context and get ahead of future crisis. The issue of future enlargements of the European Intervention Initiative was also discussed.
Participants shared their views on some of the emerging defence and security challenges, including the situation in the Sahel, Belarus, Artic/High North, the Mediterranean Sea, the growing threat of disinformation and cyber-attacks, maritime security as well as post-COVID defence spending and how to reduce dependency in the logistics supply chains.
In 2021, the EI2 Ministers annual meeting as well as the Strategic Dialogue’s meeting will be hosted by Sweden.
EI2 is an independent and flexible forum, aimed at bringing European countries together to prepare themselves better for future crisis by creating a shared strategic culture. EI2 will not duplicate activities within the EU, NATO, UN, the OSCE or ad hoc coalitions, but will be complementary to them.
