“NATO has kept peace in Europe, and with the strength of its sword it defended the ideas upon which Europe was created after the Great World War. NATO guarantees to Montenegro stability and reliability in time. Erase from your memories the 65 years of NATO existence and imagine how Europe would look”, said the President of the Parliament of Montenegro Mr Ranko Krivokapić, in his opening statement. 

Defence Ministerial of 14 states of SEE was mostly focused on current world security challenges.

President of the Parliament of Montenegro Mr Ranko Krivokapić said that Europe nowadays was in the time of unrest, as well as in the time of looking for new answers in security part.

 “We thought that in this region the last European war had ended, some call it the Third Balkan war, and we hoped that it had been the last Balkan war in Europe. We now see that it has not been so. That is something that makes all of us face the fact that we are now in a time that some call the time of unrest, lack of order, in the security part - the time of looking for urgent new answers”, said President Krivokapić. He pointed out the significance of Montenegro.

 “Montenegro is a country that was the first to have its peace mission in Crete 1898, when the great powers managed to agree that only Montenegrin military could be reliable enough to create peace between Greece and Turkey. Times are changing, but not too much. We, in politics, would like to have times change more, and in a good way”, said President Krivokapić.

President of the Parliament of Montenegro on that occasion noted that NATO was a peacekeeping organisation.

 “History is full of steps back and steps forward. When times are such that not everything is alright, then we try to find something which guarantees stability in time and reliability in time. For us in Montenegro that is now NATO. This organisation was the answer to the challenge of the Iron Curtain. However, not only that but I believe that NATO has kept the vision of challenges for new times. We need to recall that NATO has existed for 65 years. We in the Mediterranean can see all that better through images. The NATO symbol in Mediterranean is the winged Venetian lion. It has kept the peace in Europe. And with the strength of its sword, it defended the ideas upon which Europe was created after the Great World War. History values the least those who have prevented great damages. History does not have a good measure for those invisible grandiose achievements. And those are precisely the ones that have kept the peace before all threats of war. Erase from your memories the 65 years of NATO and imagine how Europe would look”, said President of the Parliament of Montenegro.