NATO Expert Group member calls on Alliance to deepen partnership with Georgia and Ukraine. Such a statement Wess Mitchell made during the virtual discussion on the findings of the independent group supporting NATO 2030 held today.

“I think the group of experts saw the report as an opportunity for clarity on NATO orientation towards its Eastern partners on a couple of levels.

First, I think both, tone and substance, a report is very clear and affirming open-door policy, the western prospects and path of Ukraine and Georgia and of course, in saying that, NATO allies should substantially support vulnerable democracies like those that are under pressure from Russia internally and externally.

The second thing I want to stress is that the report is constructively critical on how NATO currently manages its partnerships, including its eastern partnerships. These are tremendously valuable tools, but they’ve also grown up or evolved in a sort of luminous fashion since the Cold War. In almost greenhouse conditions, they didn’t always impose a lot of rigour and how to utilize partnerships and the result is that today you have partnerships in NATO and you can take for example partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia, where the priorities and activities of those partnerships actually come about because of demand signals from the partners themselves, as opposed to coming from NATO…

If you want to strengthen the partnership with Georgia and Ukraine, start having a more strategic and systematic approach on how you are funding your partnerships, how you are utilizing and communicating with your partners”, - concluded Mitchell.