Madrid : NATO’s next Summit will take place in Madrid on 29-30 June 2022, marking the 40th anniversary of Spain’s accession to the alliance.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the date during a visit by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday. The Secretary General also met with King Felipe VI at the Zarzuela palace.
In his talks with Sánchez, along with Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno Defence Minister Margarita Robles Fernández, Stoltenberg expressed his gratitude to Spain for hosting the next summit.
“This accession anchored Spain among the free and democratic countries of the transatlantic community, and also paved the way for your country’s membership in the EU a few years later,” Stoltenberg said.
“We need to keep adapting for the future. And that is exactly what we will do at the Madrid Summit next year.”
NATO leaders are expected to take important decisions to implement the ambitious NATO 2030 agenda, including boosting the alliance’s resilience and cyber defences, sharpening its technological edge, and addressing the security impact of climate change, a NATO statement said.
NATO’s next Strategic Concept will also be adopted at the 2022 Summit, the Secretary General pointed out.
“The Madrid Strategic Concept will reflect the new security environment, recommit to our values, and reaffirm our unity. Ensuring that our Alliance is fit for the future,” he said.
At their Brussels Summit in June 2021, NATO leaders agreed to develop the next Strategic Concept in time for the next summit in 2022.
According to NATO, Strategic Concepts equip the Alliance for security challenges and guide its future political and military development and reiterate NATO’s enduring purpose and nature, and its fundamental security tasks.
“They are reviewed to take account of changes to the global security environment to ensure the Alliance is properly prepared to execute its core tasks, making transformation in the broad sense of the term, a permanent feature of the Organization,” NATO said.
The current Strategic Concept “Active Engagement, Modern Defence” (2010) outlines three essential core tasks – collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.
