MOD Permanent Secretary meets with Joint Expeditionary Force counterparts
Permanent Secretaries from the 10 Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) participant nations met for the first time this year.
The Joint Expeditionary Force meet for the first time this year. Crown copyright.
MOD Permanent Secretary, David Williams, met with his 9 counterparts from the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) on 15 September 2021.
Together, they discussed the challenges of the last 12 months, as well as the successes that the JEF has achieved, in spite of the challenges of COVID-19. They discussed the key security challenges facing the JEF nations and exchanged views where they could further increase cooperation between the participant nations.
They reflected on achievements this year, they noted the first maritime security activity in the Baltic Sea lead by the Royal Navy, the JEF officially welcoming Iceland as their 10th member and deployment of the JEF headquarters to Sweden to participate in Exercise JOINT PROTECTOR.
The meeting of Permanent Secretaries and country representatives follows a meeting of JEF Defence Ministers in Helsinki in June of this year, which saw all 10 participant nations sign the JEF Policy Direction, helping set the policy framework which will allow the nations to rapidly deploy in response to military threats or crises.