NATO-Ukraine Council meets in Brussels to discuss Kyiv’s accession to Alliance

Europe, News October 6, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Olga Stefanishyna arrived in Brussels on October 4, 2023, to participate in the latest meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana and focused on finding ways to hasten Kyiv’s accession into the Alliance.

The Ukrainian side presented an updated plan of political, security, and defense reforms during the meeting. The updated program is a part of Ukraine’s larger Annual National Program (ANP), a control tool for monitoring Ukraine’s correspondence with NATO members and Kyiv’s accession into the alliance.

The program focuses on improving Kyiv’s position in certain areas to achieve full interoperability with the Alliance. This includes effective civilian control over security and defense forces, ensuring integrity, transparency, and accountability, the transformation of defense policy and planning, modernization of command and control systems, improvement of the strategic communications system, further transition to NATO standards, digital transformation, cyber security, information security, and information exchange, the transformation of the defense industry and the introduction of modern technologies, and the expansion of opportunities in the field of rehabilitation and reintegration of war veterans.

“NATO member states will make their contribution into the ANP, so by the end of 2023 we must start the implementation of the measures that will bring us closer to NATO membership,” Stefanishyna said in a tweet after the meeting.

Glad to welcome @StefanishynaO to #NATO. We discussed implementing key #NATOSummit decisions to support #Ukraine, including work to achieve full interoperability of the Ukrainian forces with NATO, and the importance of Ukraine’s continued reforms.

Read: https://t.co/I6EQ4C8Pyg pic.twitter.com/NDi7CSXWiP
— Mircea Geoana (@Mircea_Geoana) October 4, 2023

NATO also released a statement regarding the meeting which emphasized that Ukraine’s security has “great importance” in the alliance. The statement added that Geoana “commended allies and Ukraine’s efforts to quickly implement decisions from the Vilnius Summit.”

“Allies continue to provide substantial assistance to Ukraine, including through NATO’s Comprehensive Assistance package, and are taking forward important work to ensure Ukraine’s forces are fully interoperable with NATO,” it said. “All of this means that Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before.”

Deputy Secretary General Commended Allies and Ukraine’s efforts to quickly implement decisions from the Vilnius Summit. The statement said that Allies continue to provide substantial assistance to Ukraine, including through NATO’s Comprehensive Assistance package, and are taking forward important work to ensure Ukraine’s forces are fully interoperable with NATO.

*^{NATO and Ukraine flags. (Image Credit: Ministry of Defence of Ukraine)}*

The NATO-Ukraine Council was set up during the NATO annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The council focuses on building cooperation and coordination between the Western military alliance and the Ukrainian administration to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation, and Ukraine’s aspirations for membership in NATO.

So far, there have been three meetings for the NATO-Ukraine Council including the inaugural meeting that took place during the NATO summit in Vilnius. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg convened the second NATO-Ukraine Council meeting in July which was called to address the serious security situation in the Black Sea after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.