Margarita Robles: 'Unity is our strength'

The Minister for Defence Margarita Robles, attends the 20th Ministerial Meeting of the 5+5 Defence Initiative, at the Navy Headquarters, in Madrid

The Minister for Defence, Margarita Robles, has expressed her pride "for having held the presidency of the 5+5 Defence Forum this year. A time in which all the countries involved in this initiative have shown that it is possible to work for peace through dialogue and unity, while being aware of the difficulties represented by the current geopolitical situation."

Twenty years after its launch, the 5+5 Initiative is consolidating and expanding year after year, thanks to the continuous military cooperation activities organised by all participating nations in areas such as maritime security, air safety, search and rescue at sea, support to civilian authorities in disaster situations, gender outlook, training, research, special operations, cyber defence, etc.

The Minister for Defence passed the baton of the presidency to Tunisia, but not before reviewing the progress and work carried out throughout this year "to face challenges that are common to us in the Western Mediterranean, such as the rise of terrorism and climate change."

"These are issues in which our unity is our strength," said Robles, who emphasised that "we have managed to make our areas of influence freer and safer spaces and to advance towards the goal of modernity that we want to achieve. Multilateral cooperation is essential for all of this."

The events to mark the handover of the Spanish presidency began last night with a reception for the delegations of the participating countries at the Spanish Army Headquarters. This morning, the agenda included various meetings, this time held at Naval Headquarters, to present the results for 2024 and the forecasts for 2025.

In addition to Spain, the twentieth ministerial meeting of this forum was attended by the defence ministers and heads of the delegations of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia, France, Italy, Malta and Portugal.

A year full of activities

Minister Robles attended the ministerial meeting in Lisbon on 13 December 2023 and picked up the baton of this initiative which is now moving to Tunisia. Throughout this year, Spain has organised a total of 12 activities, including high-level meetings, basically those of the Steering Committee made up of the national delegations, the meetings of the Chiefs of Defence Staff, the Naval Group and the Pedagogical Committee, of which CESEDEN is a member, in the case of Spain.

In addition, a number of other activities involving the army and the navy have seen the light of day, including a major maritime rescue and rescue at sea exercise (CANASAR) led by the air and space forces, and a maritime security exercise led by the navy (MARSEC).

There was also time for a seminar on force health protection in operations and an underground combat exercise. All in all, an intense year of work which, through this initiative, adds to our country's objective of defending peace, security and democratic values.

Non official translation