Commenting on the NATO conference Mrs Neyts stated “the conference is scheduled to decide whether to begin or delay the process leading to NATO membership for Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Georgia and Ukraine. While NATO membership for the first three countries is fairly uncontroversial, provided Greece and Macedonia can agree on a name for the latter, the same cannot be said about Georgia nor Ukraine. While I personally can envisage EU membership for each of them, I do feel that it is too soon to embark on the route to NATO membership”.

Furthermore, the conference provides the opportunity for an intensification of EU-NATO links and Mrs Neyts drew particular attention to the relationship between the EU and Russia: “This is the moment to get the process off the ground. Russia matters, and I for one haven’t given up the hope to see a mature, working and workable relationship develop between the EU and Russia”.