Welcome Address

Troels Frøling

Secretary General of the Atlantic Treaty Association

Rome, Center for High Defense Studies, 25th September 2006

 

On behalf of the Atlantic Treaty Association allow me to take part in the welcome to this Rome Atlantic Forum. And thank you.
A special word of thanks goes to our Italian host at this Center, Admiral Luciano Callini, President of the Italian Center for High Defense Studies. Thank you for opening your Center for us and for your great support to this Forum, also with Officers, Tutors and staff, all here to make sure things work well.
We are privileged to be hosted at the Center for Higher Defense Studies, in the center of Rome, the eternal city, where East meets West, where North meets South. As will also be the case for the Forum and its participants.
We could not meet at a more appropriate place than this Forum for studies of security, for coming up with visions for the future.
We are likewise very thankful to our host and organiser, The Italian Atlantic Committee, its President the Honourable professor Enrico La Loggia and its Secretary General, my colleague and good friend Dr. Fabrizio W. Luciolli.
 
A big word of thanks to your staff, Elisa Nicodano, Giuseppe Belardetti, and the Officers from the Center who are making this Forum become a reality.
Thanks also to Miriam Bates, who has worked as my assistant at the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) Secretariat in Brussels to start and coordinate the whole preparatory work of finding and selecting participants.
 
The ATA is an international network organisation dealing with security. We are forty member organisations, each of them being independent of the ATA carrying out their own activities in their own country. The ATA function works as the umbrella organisation, it organise conferences, crisis simulation seminars, and run projects on civil society and security issues, such as the Balkan Mosaic involving eight organisations from eight countries. We reach out to future leaders of your generation in all of the NATO, EU and Partner countries and beyond that, out of area. We engage, we activate, we provoke the successor generations, the future leaders in discussion of security issues .
We try to reach out to those interested: NGOs Researchers, Future leaders. We do this in cooperation with our youth association, the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association (YATA) and its President Harald Thørud.
ATA & YATA represent the international NGO security network linking those interested in the Transatlantic and European security issues. Forty countries so far and still more joining.
 
This Rome Atlantic Forum brings a new dimension in our ATA world. NATO is having its summit in Riga November 28-29 and we intend to present the Rome Forum vision in Riga. The Working Groups will discuss Counter-terrorism and Critical Infrastructure Protection, Stabilization and Reconstruction, Partnerships, NATO Contribution to Stability in the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa, The Western Balkans, Global Partnerships and Future of Operations.  Quite an agenda. By the Rome Atlantic Forum we want to come out with a vision: your vision for transatlantic security by 2020.

 

 
 
 

52 ATA General Assembly

Athens, December 5-10. NATO's Challenges in 21st Century.  >>

Riga Summit

November 28 - 29. Think Tank representatives, Researchers and Young Political Leaders, will meet in Riga in parallel meetings and educational programs that will be addressed by the NATO Heads of State and Government.  >>

Atlantic Council of Albania

Tirana, November 18. Educational Seminar on Euro-Atlantic Values and the Cooperation for Security.

International Seminar in Milan

October 19 - 21. A three days Seminar, organized by the Catholic University and promoted by the Italian Atlantic Committee, brought together researchers, students and academicians, that analyzed NATO and the New Challenges to the Military Force and Diplomacy.