Address by

NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the Artists' Exhibition

Ladies and gentlemen good morning, good afternoon, on behalf of Jeannine my wife, myself, the delegation, you see of course your own Ambassador Linkevičius at our side.

This is impressive. I was signing documents for the artists in my office in Brussels last week and then it is difficult to visualize what it basically is. The first thought I think we have when you look at the different artists and the way they have portrayed, depicted, NATO security partnership is that it has very many facets, very many elements. The first connection I make between NATO and artists are the words freedom and value. If you are an artist, you have the full freedom of expressing yourself. In this case, expressing what you see in NATO.

The second element is that is the importance of this exhibition. I think by the way it should not only stay here in Vilnius, it should travel.  I think we could certainly find a place at a certain stage in NATO Headquarters to do something with it because it explains NATO. It does not sell NATO. I always say NATO is no washing powder. I do not sell NATO. You explain NATO. You mean what it is and most importantly what the values are that NATO is defending.

I say here in Vilnius once again what I have said many times before, if you see Jeannine and myself standing here, for us born in 1948 (one year before NATO started by the way), for us the values NATO has defended since 1949 always came automatically. And for the youngest generation in Lithuania that is also true. Ambassador Linkevičius was explaining us a moment ago that if you see the work of the artists with the pictures, the photographs, on part of an aircraft and somebody serving in an army, that was a Soviet Army. So there were no values, there were no free values. Lithuania could not decide itself what it wanted to do and I'm quite sure that if artists were to express themselves in a way the Soviets didn't like, that would have been forbidden.

In other words - what is the importance of this exhibition? To show what NATO is. NATO is soft power; but NATO is also hard power if necessary. Because to defend those values you from time to time you need a bit more than soft power. That is perhaps not nice to realize, but in Afghanistan with a very important contribution of Lithuania, NATO unfortunately from time to time has to use hard power as well against the people who do not want us to be there and do not want us to see helping build Afghanistan.

So these are the thoughts, and I am quite sure I am speaking on behalf of Jeannine as well, her body language is okay. This is the way that we see NATO. I think it is a very good initiative. I think  it should be seen outside Vilnius as well and I can only say to the artists the greatest respect for what you've done. You see the diversity in moving around here for 10-15 minutes. The greatest respect for what you have done.

And an important element I think for the general public is what is NATO all about? Because NATO is, from time to time, we have to realize very far away from the kitchen table. We have conference tables in the building on the other side of the road, but we need kitchen tables. We need tables as well by the way, but we need conference tables where we can do our job; but we will not do our job successfully if the people around the kitchen table do not understand what we are doing. I think you as artists have understood very well what we are doing and we are grateful for that.

So not too long a speech I hope because otherwise I will hear about that later.

Thank you so much for organizing this. Thank you so much for explaining NATO. Thank you so much for helping bringing NATO to the kitchen table. I think at least I have signed certificates of appreciation for all of you and for the important work that you have done.

So on behalf of the two of us, but on behalf of all the NATO Allies, a warm thank you and I think quite honestly a round of applause for the artists who have made this exhibition so successful.

Thank you very much indeed.