SDA PRESS RELEASE – Solana and de Hoop Scheffer co-presidents of security think tank

Javier Solana, former EU High Representative for CFSP, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former NATO Secretary General, will define the scope of the Brussels-based Security & Defence Agenda’s 2011 debate.

At the SDA’s Annual Advisory Board and Members’ lunch, former NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, inaugurated the presidency of the Brussels-based think-tank with an outline of the key areas the SDA should be focusing on.
‘We need to tackle the growing disconnect between the political elite and the people’ said Mr de Hoop Scheffer. He went on to outline some of the political areas where the SDA’s activities would be making a contribution in the next year:

Among other suggestions put forward during the lunch debate were those from Pascale Andréani, Ambassador of France to NATO, Stephen Everts, member of Catherine Ashton’s cabinet, Ivo Daalder, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Ana Maria Gomes, MEP, Dumitru Sorin Ducaru, Ambassador of Romania to NATO, Karel Kovanda, Deputy Director General CFSP, European Commission, István Kovács, Ambassador of Hungary to NATO, Selim Kuneralp, Turkey’s Ambassador to the EU, Stefano Stefanini, Ambassador of Italy to NATO and Geoffrey Van Orden, MEP.
Jamie Shea, NATO’s Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary General, recommended the SDA should complement its analysis and political debate with concrete recommendations, such as the SDA’s milestone publication 10 Recommendations on the new Global Security Landscape which was released in May this year. The Recommendations came out of the SDA’s 2010 Security Jam, a 5-day online brainstorm supported by NATO and the EU that brought together 4,000 security experts, policymakers, civil society and industry representatives from 124 countries to develop ideas on how to make the world a safer place.
The Annual Advisory Board and Members’ lunch welcomed senior representatives of governments, diplomatic missions, international institutions and business.