“We will have today, I believe, a good discussion with the Defence Ministers in an informal setting, so we will not take any decisions” – the EU top diplomat Federica Mogherini said ahead of the NATO meeting in Sofia.

“We will have, first of all, the opportunity to look at the implementation of the Permanent Structured Cooperation in particular. The projects, the state-of-play of the advancement of the implementation of the projects, and obviously starting to prepare the European Council in June that will focus again on how much we have advanced on our European defence work. And indeed, I have to say, I am very satisfied – it is a remarkable job Ministers have managed to do together.”

“And then we will have another point that to me is very important: a discussion with the Deputy Secretary Generals of the United Nations and NATO that are both here with us on how and what we can do better in the world together, coordinating our missions and operations in peacekeeping, prevention of conflict and crisis management. It will be a broad range – let’s say 360 degree – look at the world to see where cooperation is already working, and working well, and where we can and must do more, and what kind of synergies we can have.”

“We will have the NATO summit in July, so it is also an important moment to prepare for that. We will come there with important work done on military mobility, making it easier for military equipment and personnel to move around Europe. This is work that the European Union is doing in coordination with NATO and that, I believe, will be at a very advanced stage for the July Summit with NATO” – Mogherini concluded.