Mr. Secretary General,

President Havel,

Dear friends and colleagues,

The Prague Summit is a defining moment.

We are here today to chart the course for a new and stronger Alliance.

We are facing entirely new security challenges. This requires a new NATO.

Norway is fully committed to turning NATO into an even more efficient tool in defence of our free, open and democratic societies.

Today we have made a historic decision to enlarge the Alliance, to keep the door open and help additional candidate countries move closer to membership.

During the Summit we will bring our wider Euro-Atlantic partnership of 46 countries to a qualitatively new level, based on the recognition that the partners need us and we need them.

We have embarked on a new relationship with Russia. President Putin stressed Russia’s firm commitment to our partnership during my talk with him in Oslo last week.

Our cooperation with Russia must now be brought forward. We have proposed that new areas of non-proliferation and civil emergency planning become new areas of cooperation. Engaging Russia on these issues is important to prevent nuclear material from falling into wrong hands and to protect our population against terrorist attacks.

Today we will demonstrate that there must also be a change in the way we will go about meeting the new challenges ahead of us.

In addressing the new threats, the key words are readiness and flexibility.

Let me, Secretary General, take this opportunity to thank you personally for your relentless efforts to help us realize new NATO capability commitments, to make our forces more flexible, more modern and able to meet new challenges, when and where they occur.

Norway is committed to contribute significantly in all the identified capability areas. Substantial funds have been re-prioritized to meet NATO’s objectives, and the Norwegian defense budget has been increased.

Norway fully supports the establishment of a NATO Response Force. It reflects a new and more acute need to deploy forces quickly. We are prepared to give a significant contribution to such a force, including highly specialized capabilities.

We must enhance the protection of our forces and population against weapons of mass destruction, while striving for closer allied cooperation on civil emergency planning.

New and flexible force structures will require new and more flexible command structures. We are encouraged by the ongoing work in this field. A new and streamlined command structure must make military sense in a changed security environment. We fully support the outline, now taking shape, based on an operational command in Europe and a new strategic command for transformation located in the United States. We need, however, a significant presence of this new command on European soil.

Our efforts with regard to forces and structures must reflect the importance of military interoperability and ensure that the Trans-Atlantic partnership grows stronger.

In short, we are committed to the need for change and transformation, and we will contribute fully.

Secretary General,

Military means can never be the only tools in protecting our security and common values. We must make full use of political, diplomatic, legal and economic tools as well. We can only ensure collective security together, through joint action, coordinated and decisive action in full accordance with the principles laid down in the Charter of the United Nations.

We must demand from ourselves and from all our partners, a constant and dedicated effort to respect international law, to build democratic societies and to respect and safeguard the rights of their peoples.

And to succeed we must work with others, the UN, the EU and the OSCE in an even closer partnership.

Secretary General,

We have enlarged the Alliance. We have committed ourselves to provide new and essential capabilities. But above all we have reaffirmed the Trans-Atlantic ties and NATO’s essential role in providing security for us all.

Our historic decisions in Prague today build on President Havel’s legacy and his personal commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights.

As we now move on to implement our decisions, we must and we will succeed.

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