The 2014 Wales Summit of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

(NATO) was a meeting of the

heads of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 "he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and le ...

and

heads of government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a gro ...

of the NATO countries, held in Newport,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

on 4 and 5 September 2014. Such

summits A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a ...

are sporadically held, and allow leaders and officials from NATO Allies to discuss current issues of mutual concern and to plan strategic activities. The 2014 summit has been described by US Navy Admiral

James G. Stavridis James George Stavridis (born February 15, 1955) is a retired United States Navy admiral, currently Vice Chair, Global Affairs and Managing Director of the global investment firm the Carlyle Group, and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Rocke ...

as the most important since the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

Background

The summit was hosted by British Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

. Attendees included Canadian Prime Minister

Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ...

, US President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

, German Chancellor

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...

, French President

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...

, Italian Prime Minister

Matteo Renzi Matteo Renzi (; born 11 January 1975) is an Italian politician who served as prime minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016. He has been a senator for Florence since 2018. Renzi has served as the leader of Italia Viva (IV) since 2019, having been ...

and Spanish Prime Minister

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a vote of no confidence ousted his government. On 5 June 2018, he announced his resignation as People's Party lead ...

. There were another 180 VIPs, and 4,000 delegates and officials from approximately 60 countries. The official logo for the summit included a panel with four quadrants, each bearing a stylised symbol of Newport or Wales: a

Celtic knot Celtic knots ( ga, snaidhm Cheilteach, cy, cwlwm Celtaidd, kw, kolm Keltek, gd, snaidhm Ceilteach) are a variety of knots and stylized graphical representations of knots used for decoration, used extensively in the Celtic style of Insular ...

, the

Welsh Dragon The Welsh Dragon ( cy, y Ddraig Goch, meaning 'the red dragon'; ) is a heraldic symbol that represents Wales and appears on the national flag of Wales. As an emblem, the red dragon of Wales has been used since the reign of Cadwaladr, King of ...

Newport Transporter Bridge The Newport Transporter Bridge ( cy, Pont Gludo Casnewydd) is a transporter bridge that crosses the River Usk in Newport, South East Wales. The bridge is the lowest crossing on the River Usk. It is a Grade I listed structure. It is one of f ...

and a Welsh castle. The entrance to the venue was fronted by a full-scale replica of a

Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...

Agenda

NATO Foreign Ministers' dinner September 2014

World leaders met at the

Celtic Manor Celtic Manor Resort is a golf, spa and leisure hotel and resort in the city of Newport, South East Wales. Owned by Sir Terry Matthews, the resort is located on the south-facing side of Christchurch Hill in eastern Newport, near Junction 24 of ...

, and informally at other locales in and around

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

. They discussed ongoing events in the world, such as terrorism,

cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyber attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation or economic war ...

, and other areas of national security interest to the member states. Ukrainian President

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko ser ...

had a joint discussion with

EU big four The Big Four, also known as G4, refers to France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. France and the United Kingdom are official nuclear-weapon states and are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power of veto, w ...

leaders and US President Barack Obama before the official start of the Summit, to discuss the crisis with Russia.

Outcomes

The following declarations and agreements were made at the Summit: *Wales Summit Declaration *Joint Expeditionary Force agreement *

NATO Readiness Action Plan The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental military alliance between 30 Member sta ...

NATO Security Capacity Building Initiative The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two Nor ...

* Armed Forces Declaration *Joint Statement of the NATO-Ukraine Commission *Declaration on Afghanistan *The Wales Declaration on the Transatlantic Bond ; Russia and Ukraine Immediately prior to the summit on 3 September 2014 French President

announced the postponement of delivery of the first

Mistral-class amphibious assault ship The ''Mistral'' class is a class of five amphibious assault ships built by France. Also known as helicopter carriers, and referred to as "projection and command ships" (french: links=no, bâtiments de projection et de commandement or BPC), a '' ...

which had been sold to Russia, a ship provisionally named , due to the Russia–Ukraine crisis. At the end of the summit Ukrainian President Poroshenko announced the

Minsk Protocol The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the War in Donbas (2014–2022), Donbas war fought between Russian separatist forces in Donbas, armed Russian separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine, with ...

, a ceasefire which had been agreed with the separatist leader

Alexander Zakharchenko Alexander Vladimirovich Zakharchenko uk, Олекса́ндр Володи́мирович Заха́рченко, translit=Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Zakharchenko (26 June 1976 – 31 August 2018) was a Ukrainian separatist leader who was the h ...

under terms proposed by Russian President

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

. The protocol was cautiously welcomed by NATO leaders. On 12 September 2014 the EU announced a much wider expansion of its sanctions programme over the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On 12 September a communiqué of the US Treasury announced a sweeping ban on the Russian defence sector. ;Wales Pledge For the first time, the Allies formally pledged to aim to move towards what had previously been an informal guideline of spending 2% of their gross domestic products on defense, and 20% of that on new equipment. For countries which spend less than 2% they agreed upon that these countries "aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade". This pledge was the brainchild of US

Secretary of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

Chuck Hagel Charles Timothy Hagel ( born October 4, 1946)F-35 fighter jets). ;Support for Military Intervention Against ISIL On 5 September 2014, the U.S., Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United Kingdom, agreed to support anti-ISIL forces in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

with supplies and air support.‘U.S. Forms Anti-ISIS Coalition at NATO Summit’
''Time'', 5 September 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2015.

Criticism

A retired German politician, , former defence Parliamentary Secretary of State (until 2002) in the

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

First Schröder cabinet The First Schröder cabinet (German: ''Kabinett Schröder I'') was the 19th Government of Federal Republic of Germany in office from 27 October 1998 until 22 October 2002. It succeeded the Fifth Kohl cabinet formed after the 1998 elections. Ger ...

and former head of the

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international institute based in Stockholm. It was founded in 1966 and provides data, analysis and recommendations for armed conflict, military expenditure and arms trade as well a ...

(until 1991), criticised the summit agenda for its focus on military details and not political perspectives. Stützle said that the Russian Federation was not a military threat to NATO but criticised that new NATO members' policies were not

détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...

and negotiation with the Russian Federation.

Protestors and security detail

In both Newport and Cardiff, road closures and security measures, starting weeks in advance of the summit, created widespread disruption. of security fencing, high, was erected around the Newport hotel venue and of fencing put up around Cardiff city centre. Businesses in the vicinity of security fencing in Cardiff reported a drop in trade by up to a third. This fencing was based on, and expanded, the ' National Barrier Asset' which is held in reserve for similar events. Security included around 9,500 specially trained police officers patrolling the streets of the two cities, military helicopters including US Osprey V22s and the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

's new £1bn

Type 45 destroyer The Type 45 destroyer, also known as the D or ''Daring'' class, is a Ship class, class of six guided-missile destroyers built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy in the early 21st century. The class is primarily designed for Anti-aircraft warfa ...

stationed in

Cardiff Bay Cardiff Bay ( cy, Bae Caerdydd; historically Tiger Bay; colloquially "The Bay") is an area and freshwater lake in Cardiff, Wales. The site of a former tidal bay and estuary, it serves as the river mouth of the River Taff and Ely. The body of w ...

Protests, demonstrations and marches took place in Newport and Cardiff involving several hundred people, though the turnout was much lower than predicted.

Leaders and other dignitaries in attendance

Member states

Non-member states and organisations

NATO Foreign ministers

* Albania –

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

Ditmir Bushati Ditmir Bushati (born 24 March 1977) is an Albanian politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2019. He previously chaired the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration. Early life and education Bushati ...

* Belgium –

Didier Reynders Didier Reynders (; born 6 August 1958) is a Belgian politician and a member of the Mouvement Réformateur (MR) serving as European Commissioner for Justice since 2019. He held various positions in public institutions before becoming a member of t ...

* Bulgaria –

Daniel Mitov Daniel Pavlov Mitov ( bg, Даниел Павлов Митов; born 4 December 1977) is a Bulgarian politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria from 2014 to 2017. He became Minister of Foreign Affairs on August 6, 2014 in th ...

* France –

Laurent Fabius Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 Marc ...

* Germany – Foreign Minister

Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He was previously Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as Vice Chan ...

* Italy – Foreign Minister

Federica Mogherini Federica Mogherini (; born 16 June 1973) is an Italian politician who served as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. She previously served as I ...

* Norway –

Børge Brende Børge Brende (born 25 September 1965) is a Norwegian politician and diplomat, and has been the president of the World Economic Forum since 2017. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 201 ...

* Spain – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation

José Manuel García-Margallo José Manuel García-Margallo y Marfil (born 13 August 1944) is a Spanish politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2011 to 2016. Since 2019, he has been a member of the European Parliament. Early life and educa ...

* United Kingdom –

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

Philip Hammond Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede (born 4 December 1955) is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, and Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014. ...

* United States – Secretary of State

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...

References

External links

NATO Summit Wales 2014

* Łukasz Kulesa (www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org)

ttp://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/medialibrary/2014/08/29/a11ccd2d/NATO%20Summit%20Policy%20Brief%20-%20LKulesa.pdf PDF(14 p.) {{War in Donbass Diplomatic conferences in the United Kingdom 2014 conferences 2014 in international relations 2014 in Wales 21st-century diplomatic conferences NATO summits Events in Newport, Wales 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine United Kingdom and NATO 2014 in British politics History of Newport, Wales September 2014 events in the United Kingdom Events in Cardiff