Original title: The 21st European Security and Defense Conference was held in Berlin, Germany
On November 30, local time, the two-day Berlin Security Conference and the 21st European Security and Defense Conference were held in Berlin, Germany. This is also the first time that Germany has hosted a large-scale international security conference since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February this year. German Chancellor Scholz, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg, German Defense Minister Lambrecht, Norwegian Defense Minister Graham, Swedish Defense Minister Jonsson, Finnish Defense Minister Kekkonen and EU Military Commission Chairman Brig Senior representatives from political and military circles attended the meeting.
Scholz said Germany would continue to support Ukraine financially, politically, militarily and humanitarianally, and he called for a negotiated end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. At the same time, he also expressed his willingness to discuss outstanding issues such as security and missile deployment with Russia.
Germany and Norway proposed at the meeting that after the destruction of the “Beixi-1” and “Beixi-2” natural gas pipelines, NATO should assume the responsibility of protecting the submarine natural gas pipelines and Internet lines. Scholz said: “Pipelines, telephone lines and Internet fiber optic cables are the lifelines of our countries and must be particularly secure. The attacks on the ‘Nord Stream-1’ and ‘Nord Stream-2’ gas pipelines show that there is a huge risk here.”
NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg welcomed the initiative, saying NATO would set up a coordination office to effectively coordinate the police and military, and involve the European Union and private companies.
German Federal Defense Minister Lambrecht once again emphasized Germany’s determination to strengthen national defense. She said that the long-standing neglect of the Bundeswehr must end and it must be ensured that the Bundeswehr can defend Germany and NATO in the future. Previously, Germany has approved a special defense fund of 100 billion euros, which will be used to purchase armaments to strengthen the defense of the Bundeswehr.
(Headquarters reporter Yu Peng)