Defence: ADRION, Ministerial Meeting in Venice

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The ADRION (Adriatic and Ionian Initiative) Ministerial Meeting was held today in Venice, aboard the Amerigo Vespucci, chaired by Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto, together with his counterparts from Albania, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro and Slovenia.

“Today in Venice, together with my counterparts from Albania, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro and Slovenia, we discussed security, cooperation and shared responsibility. I thanked my colleagues for the quality, frankness and constructive spirit of our discussions.

For me, the point is simple: no European country can think it can tackle the challenges we face on its own: conventional, hybrid and technological threats. These threats are increasingly interconnected and increasingly difficult to address separately.

This is precisely what the ADRION experience is about: transforming a shared geography into a common capacity to act. Bringing together information, experience, tools and capabilities.

We share interests, priorities and projects, but above all, an awareness of the responsibilities that stem from belonging to the same strategic space.

I congratulated my Slovenian colleague Valentin Hajdinjak on the work carried out during Slovenia’s ADRION presidency and extended my best wishes to my Albanian colleague Ermal Nufi, who will assume the next presidency.

Enhancing security in the Adriatic and Ionian regions means strengthening our neighbourhood, but it also means contributing to building a European Defence framework on a continental scale, capable of going beyond the boundaries of the EU’s 27 Member States and acting in full synergy with the Atlantic Alliance.

Today’s meeting marked a further step forward in the quality of our common path. ADRION has delivered, and continues to deliver, concrete results in the maritime domain, such as the ‘On-Call Maritime Force’: a concrete example of cooperation and capability sharing that can serve as a reference at European level, with a view to defending Europe across the full 360 degrees, while also paying the necessary attention to the Southern Flank.

Because the more capable we are of standing together, the stronger we are. And the stronger we are, the more we can defend peace.”

This was stated by Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto on the occasion of the ADRION Ministerial Meeting (Adriatic and Ionian Initiative).