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German Lieutenant General Martin Schelleis talks about military mobility and civil-military cooperation during Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20.

Lieutenant General Martin Schelleis, Chief of the German Joint Support and Enabling Service, talks about Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20 at the port of Bremerhaven, Germany.

Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20 is the largest deployment of US-based troops to Europe in 25 years. It shows that US commitment to NATO and the defence of Europe remains ironclad. With participation from 16 NATO Allies, this US-led exercise is an important contribution to the readiness of NATO forces to operate together and to respond to any threat from any direction.

1. (00:00) Soundbite (ENGLISH)
Lieutenant General Martin Schelleis, Chief of the German Joint Support and Enabling Service

“DEFENDER-Europe 20 is much about military mobility, which is the cross-border movement of military forces in Europe. So actually, that’s one of the centres of gravity of the whole exercise. There is a programme within the European Union that will help, actually, facilitating this cross-border movement, so there’s a good nexus between work of the European Union and NATO.”

“It’s vital, because many of the authorities are civilian that are involved in such an exercise, so it’s an actual whole-of-government approach, what we need and I can say that I’m quite happy, at least from the German perspective, with the civil-military cooperation in that respect.”

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