Brussels, Dec. 1, (dpa/GNA) – Foreign ministers of the 30 NATO countries are to discuss for the first time on Tuesday a new expert report containing a raft of reform ideas – drawn up after some of the alliance’s own members questioned its fitness for purpose.
Among the roughly 140 concrete suggestions to reboot the transatlantic security organization are ways to strengthen its role as a consultative platform and to inhibit vetoes on joint action, dpa understands.
This comes after some allies accused others of blind-siding them over key security decisions, such as Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria last year.
It was this move that prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to say that NATO was suffering from “brain death” around one year ago.
Based in part on member states’ reactions to the suggestions, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg “will put forward my recommendations to NATO leaders when they meet next year,” he told reporters on Monday.
During the two-day meeting, foreign ministers are also to discuss the NATO mission in Afghanistan, after the United States announced that a further troop drawdown is imminent.
NATO has been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, following the US invasion there triggered by the 9/11 attacks.
As peace negotiations with the militant Taliban group continue, NATO is considering the future of its training mission there – including whether and when to pull out troops.
According to Stoltenberg on Monday, however, this “hard and difficult decision” is to be made at the NATO defence ministers’ meeting in February.
The alliance chief has warned repeatedly against sacrificing security gains made there by withdrawing too quickly.
GNA