NATO’s Future 2018

Emine Gülnihal Yolcu, representing YATA Turkey, attended the fifth NATO’s Future seminar organized by YATA Germany in Berlin between November 10-13, 2018.

During the seminar, three working groups under three main headings discussed proposals for NATO’s next steps after the Brussels summit. The first group discussed how relations within the alliance should be maintained in the context of state-society and international relations, while the second group discussed how NATO member states should use the 2% that they are required to contribute to NATO defense. The third and final group discussed how NATO’s relations with countries that are not part of the alliance or with which NATO is a partner should be organized and how they should be organized. Experts also made presentations on these topics, and these three working groups presented five proposals each, fifteen in total, based on their discussions and presentations. Each participant who was accepted to the seminar chose one of these three main topics and wrote a paper on it, which served as a starting point for the discussion groups to generate recommendations.

The 2-day seminar was followed by a conference entitled “NATO Talk around the Brandenburger Tor” with the participation of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. While the European Army, Germany-NATO, and European Union countries-NATO relations were mainly discussed at the conference, the Secretary General’s speech and the questions addressed to him were also prominent. At the end of the seminar, two questions were asked to the Secretary-General by the participants, which were put forward by the working groups and selected by voting.