On July 11-12, 2023, NATO Public Forum was held in Vilnius, Lithuania. This event makes an integral part of the annual NATO Summit.

This year, the New Europe Center became an exclusive institutional partner from Ukraine, and the director of the Center, Alyona Getmanchuk, received a personal invitation to attend the event in Vilnius. Within event’s informational support, our think tank conducted both live online and text broadcasts on its pages in social networks.

More than 30 speakers including heads of states, government officials, researchers, analysts and scientists took part in various panel discussions and special conversations. Most of them expressed their proper support for Ukraine.

The most outstanding statements made by government officials with regards to Ukraine can be found on the New Europe Center Facebook page in Ukrainian and in English on the @NEC_Ukraine Twitter account. Find some of them here below:

• «We need to stand by Ukraine as long as it takes, this is the main message of all allies. The only answer from our side is to support Ukraine. I am confident we will make strong and united decisions on Ukraine to step up our support. If President Putin wins in Ukraine, it will be a dangerous message not only to Ukraine but also to us. It is in our security interest to support Ukraine. I’m confident it will be a positive and strong message for Ukraine and the path forward for a membership», – noted in his address Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General.
• «Ukrainians are learning a lot from us: command and control, NATO doctrine, how to use smart equipment and they are moving away from the Soviet era. But we are also learning from them. And not only us, our military, but also our private sector», – added Mircea Geoană, NATO Deputy Secretary General.
• «There will be no security and stability in Europe unless Ukraine’s future is clearly defined. A clear pathway to the membership in NATO is something we own to Ukraine, only Article 5 can provide real security guarantees», – said Gitanas Nauceda, the President of Lithuania.
• «The Ukrainians are fighting for us so that the Americans, Canadians, Latvians and Estonians don’t have to do that», – told Kaja Kallas,  the Prime Minister of Estonia.

Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, also visited the Forum. Advocacy mission was being kept every minute. “Yesterday, we had plenty of consultations and discussions with American and European diplomats and experts here in Vilnius until late night. We were working to make the inaugural meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council as effective as possible and to specify some things from yesterday’s final communiqué. Only then we will have a complete picture of the Vilnius summit with decisions regarding Ukraine and a better understanding of how to build our work before the Washington summit,” – Alyona Getmanchuk shared her thoughts on the results of the first day and the beginning of the second day.

You can read more about the results of the NATO summit in Vilnius in the column of the New Europe Center director for “European Pravda”: “Minimum program in Vilnius: what did Ukraine get from the NATO summit and what it should do next” Also, we would like to will remind that on the eve of the Vilnius NATO Summit, the New Europe Center had conducted an active advocacy campaign aimed at Ukraine’s swift invitation to join the Alliance.

As part of this campaign, the New Europe Center has prepared the following analytical materials:

• An analysis of a sociological survey titled “Public opinion in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the USA. How do these countries support Ukraine and its NATO aspirations?“;
• An analytical memo titled “Why should Ukraine be invited to join NATO?“.
• An article in the New York Times “A NATO Invitation Will Make or Break Ukraine”.
• An analytical article in Politico EU “Why Ukraine should get an invitation to NATO”;
• A report in SCEEUS “No Longer a Mésalliance: How Well Prepared Are NATO and Ukraine for Each Other?”
• An article in ECFR “On the outside looking in: Why NATO should invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the Vilnius summit”
• An analytical article in Ukraine verstehen “Ukraine: invitation to NATO membership and state of reforms”
• An analytical article in Le Rubicon “Ukraine and NATO: how to correct the “Bucharest error” at the Vilnius summit”
• An analysis of a sociological survey titled “Public opinion in Germany, France, Italy, theNetherlands, and the USA. How do these countries support Ukraine and its NATO aspirations?“;
• An infographic “Ukraine adopts NATO standards despite the Big War”;
• An infographic “Accession process in NATO”.

New Europe Center is grateful to organizers for the great opportunity to become an institutional partner!

NATO Public Forum organizers: NATO, Eastern Europe Studies Centre, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Munich Security Conference and the Atlantic Council.