Slovakia will have a unique opportunity to host the NATO Defence Ministers Meeting in October this year. At this occasion, it is expected the participation of more than 28 defence ministers and tens of other important guests from both sides of the Atlantic. Slovakia has never hosted such an important event and it will be the only opportunity to host such a significant one for a long time. It is a unique opportunity for Slovakia and its capital Bratislava to present the ability of the country to step up for the current security challenges and to bring own solutions to them. In order to utilize and multiply the presence of the defence ministers in Bratislava, the Slovak Atlantic Commission will organize – in cooperation with the Slovak Ministry of Defence and NATO Public Diplomacy Division – the only official accompanying conference of the NATO Defence Ministers Meeting in Bratislava.
The intention of the conference is to interconnect the political debate, which will take place in a confidential atmosphere in a closed circle of the defence ministers, with a broader Slovak and international security community in the region and to transfer the debate to a more informal setting outside of the murals of the official NATO meeting. The conference intends to integrate a broader circle of security players – the security community in Slovakia and the region including corporate sector – to the security debate taking place in Bratislava. The conference will thus multiply the messages of the official defence ministers meeting. This conference represents a unique opportunity to shape the international and domestic security discussion with the key players of the most successful security and defence organisation and its key members. In this way, the conference may represent a gateway of the ministerial meeting to the broader security community and through media to broader public. Vice versa it will be a unique platform to influence the shaping of NATO’s security agenda from an independent expert and corporate community level.
