Representative of the Atlantic Council of Croatia Korina Vukadinovic participated the 64th ATA Council Meeting, that took place at the ATA headquarters in Brussels in June 2018.
The Meeting was attended by representatives of 17 countries, i.e. ATA delegations, along with participation of ATA Bureau members and members of ATA Secretariat.
The main discussed item Communication from the President of the ATA, Mr. Luciolli, in which he briefly informed participants on main challenges arising from the current direction of politics led by the President of the USA regarding transatlantic relations, which directly impacts NATO and all ongoing efforts of all of the organizations related to NATO that are dedicated to promoting transatlantic relations and interests. Furthermore, the President clarified the issue regarding the Board of international YATA, namely its President Mr. Jacobs and explicated their internal gentleman’s agreement which envisages, among other, new elections of the international YATA Board that shall be conducted due to procedural and material irregularities made during the last respective elections. The President also addressed some other items, such as upcoming Bucharest Security Conference, ATA General Assembly and NATO Summit, current relations between ATA and NATO (which he declared as very stable, positive and promising) as well as Secretary General Vacancy candidate.
Very interesting was also Communication from Prof. Dr. Lamers regarding the Brussels Summit, highly important in aspect of transatlantic relations as a whole, in aspect of ATA’s activities. President Luciolli initiated also several topics concerning the YATA’s future in light of previous irregularities in its functioning whereas all participants agreed that future cooperation with YATA shall be transparent and according to the statute of the association. In addition, some representatives expressed their concern regarding the previously performed attempts of establishing parallel YATA independent form ATA by Mr. Jacobs and couple of other individuals, especially in Portugal and Turkey;
Mr. Zsolt Rabai presented himself and his professional career and achievements to present representatives, which unilaterally accepted his candidature for the vacancy of Secretary General of the ATA.
After the Meeting and working lunch all participants were transferred to new NATO headquarters where they were presented main premises of the Headquarters. Upon the tour of the new headquarters the participants were addressed by Mr. Ambassador Ildem, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy regarding the NATO communication challenges and possible responses to disinformation, hybrid attacks. Mr. Ildem afterwards answered to questions posed by the participants, mainly regarding his opinion on future of NATO, i.e. further modernization of the communication sector as one of the most important tool to reach out to people in order to rise the awareness and learn about NATO, its goals and why it is vitally important in today’s world in terms of security, especially Europe.
