The Prime Minister's remarks at the doorstep press meeting at the start of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) Leaders’ Summit

As delivered

Good morning to all of you,

Welcome to the Oslo City Hall, welcome to Oslo and Norway and to this JEF Leaders’ meeting.

We met last December in Estonia. I am very happy to welcome my colleagues to Oslo.

We have a busy morning ahead of us with an agenda which is really touching on the key issues that all our states are preoccupied with; co-operating together for our own security, contributing to the NATO regional security in the north, and also underlining our support to Ukraine.

Yesterday, we had a Leaders’ dinner where we also had direct contact with the President of Ukraine and also direct contact with the US President Trump; on the need to get a ceasefire in the war going on in Ukraine, a thirty days ceasefire. We also stressed the need for accountability of such a ceasefire, and if it is not respected there should be sanctions imposed. That was an important message for us to send yesterday evening.

Today, we will have three major parts in our discussions. The first one is on Ukraine where we will invite President Zelenskyj to join us on VTC. We will have one session on the Arctic and the High North where we also will be joined by leaders from the Faroe Islands and Greenland. And then we will have one session on the transatlantic partnership.

We are a couple of months ahead of the NATO Summit in the Hague, so it will be a good basis to discuss the preparations for that summit.