NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on December 2 following the Foreign Ministerial that the Allies and Georgia have approved an updated Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP).

SNGP will consist of 16 initiatives, three of which are completely new.

The Accent was interested in what new initiatives were added to SNGP and asked NATO about specific new components of updated Substantial NATO-Georgia Package.

As NATO told the Accent, since its launch in 2014, the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP) has become the main vehicle for practical cooperation between Georgia and NATO. The package has two overarching aims:

• To strengthen Georgia's defence and enhance the level of interoperability of its capabilities with those of the Alliance;
• To help Georgia advance in its preparations for eventual NATO membership;

Specifically, the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package aims to support the following objectives:

• To act as a catalyst for the implementation of reforms of Georgia’s defence and security forces, institutions and structures;
• To enhance Georgia’s ability to operate effectively with Allied forces;
• To support Georgia’s efforts to continue contributing to Euro-Atlantic security;
• To enhance accountability and transparency;
• To enhance Georgia’s resilience; and
• To boost the level of coordination amongst difference Georgian agencies dealing with security and defence matters; and
• To bring Georgia closer to the Alliance.

According to NATO, progress on the pursuit of these objectives over the past five years has been impressive.

“Yet, NATO Allies have deemed appropriate to further boost the package. During its visit to Batumi in Autumn 2019, the North Atlantic Council called for a review of the package. In the past months a thorough review was conducted by NATO, together with various Georgian Ministries – including the Ministries of Defence, Internal Affairs, and Foreign Affairs, as well as with the Georgian Defence Forces and the Coast Guard. This review led to a fully refreshed Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, which was endorsed by NATO Foreign Ministers earlier this month.

The new package aims to:

• further enhance the interaction between Georgia and different parts of its command structure;
• strengthen the maritime component; and
• focus more on resilience.

The package will also serve as a catalyst to enhance interagency coordination within Georgia. It will continue to encompass the air, land, sea, and cyber domains and will include support activities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, including the conduct of regular joint NATO-Georgia exercises. It will consist of 16 initiatives, three of which are completely new.

• The first of these three new initiatives is meant to support Georgia in the development of a deployable military medical capacity, which can also respond to domestic and global medical emergencies.
• The second initiative aims to improve Georgia’s English language training capacity.
• The third aims to improve the codification and standardization system, which would ensure a high level of interoperability of new Georgian defence projects / programmes with NATO requirements.”

As NATO explains, other initiatives are not new, but the ambition level has been increased:

“This applies to the Joint Training and Evaluation Centre and the Defence Institution Building School, to secure communications between Georgian and NATO, and cyber security, as well as to a range of initiatives aimed at improving Georgia’s military land, air and maritime capabilities. The renewed aviation and maritime initiatives now also seek to ensure Georgia will have better situational awareness.”

“For all these initiatives, new or updated, Georgia and NATO have agreed on end states with detailed implementation plans for the coming years. Many individual Allies have already pledged to support the implementation of this package, be it with personnel and/or financial support. The broad and ambitious nature of the package illustrates the strong commitment by NATO to Georgia’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders, and its membership aspirations,” NATO told the Accent.