Since the alliance was founded, there has been a sense, at least in the U.S.—and this is from the very first years of the alliance—that Europe needed to get to a place where Europe would contribute more to Euro-Atlantic security. The creation of a number of new tools inside the European Union to do more on defence and security, frankly, are very welcome. It's PESCO plus a number of other tools that they are developing, such as the European defence fund, etc. If it means there will be more interoperability.... For instance, across Europe there will be too many tank systems to achieve interoperability. If there's a way of doing R and D procurement, capability, development, and deployments that make the European system more efficient and ensure Europe contributes more to European defence, that's all very good news.
There had been some early concerns that there would be competition between NATO and the EU, but I'm very happy to say there has been significant progress on that front with the NATO-EU very rich menu of co-operation across a whole span of activities including capability, development, and deployments. Those were concretized in a joint declaration at the Warsaw summit, and we have since expanded the menu of co-operation with NATO-EU.
Canada has a special place in that because we concluded CETA with Europe, with the EU. We have the SPA, the Strategic Partnership Agreement, in place. We have historically been contributing to European security measures as well, so we can talk to both sides at Brussels, and we do talk to both sides at Brussels about making NATO and the EU work together as the EU increases its defence capacities.