Nine Defence Ministers under lead of the Norwegian Defence Minister, Kristin Krohn Devold, have today signed an arrangement that will provide the nations with strategic sealift capacity for rapidly deployable forces. In addition to Norway the other nations are Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Hungary.

There is a shortfall in strategic sealift in the Alliance. As a consequence a High Level Group on Strategic Sealift under lead of Norway was established at Prague Summit last year. The nations agreed to increase their multinational efforts to reduce the strategic sealift for rapidly deployable forces by using a combination of fulltime charter and multinational assured access contracts. The nine nations have agreed to acquire a multinational capability package of five Ro/Ro ships and pursue an incremental approach, utilizing 2004 as a trial year. The aim is to develop further capacity for subsequent years based on the experience gained during the trial year.

To ensure effective use of the overall strategic sealift capacity the nations will utilize the services of the Sealift Coordination Centre (SCC). The SCC was established on permanent basis at Eindhoven Airbase, NL on 1 September 2003, and is based on an agreement between the Netherlands, Norway and United Kingdom.

Defence Minister Devold says she is very satisfied with the arrangement and that the additional capability package will contribute to reduce the Alliance’ shortfall in strategic sealift.