8th Steering Committee of the NATO ENSEC CEO held in France

The 8th NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence Steering Committee meeting took place on the 19-20th, April in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. The meeting was held in the premises of The French “Base Petroliere Inter Armées” (BPIA).

Representatives from all sponsoring and partner nations of the NATO ENSEC COE – Lithuania, Estonia, France, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Turkey and United Kingdom were participating in the Steering Committee meeting which was chaired by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Mr. Andrius Krivas. Highlighting their interest for the energy Security topics 2 Nations - Czech Republic and Germany - were participating as Observer Nations.

During the meeting, the representatives from Germany expressed national interest in starting joining procedures to the NATO ENSEC COE as a new sponsoring nation.

The main topics of the meeting were a reporting on the NATO ENSEC COE activities, enlargement and partnership process, getting acquainted with ongoing Program of Work and the Budget of the COE for the year 2016 and their implementations.

The nations also exchanged views on the long term vision for the NATO ENSEC COE with specific concern on energy security related issues in Eastern and Southern flank of the Alliance.

Just after the meeting Steering Committe members had the opportunity to visit training facility of French Joint Patroleum Service and Dispatching and Headquarters of French part of the NATO Central European Pipeline System.