October 2018, 3rd and 4th

The 10th CHOD meeting of 5+5 Defence Initiative Member Countries took place under the Italian presidency.

Launched in Paris in 2004, the 5+5 Defence Initiative is an important forum for cooperation in the defence and security domain among five Countries of the northern shore of the Mediterranean (France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain) and five Countries of the southern shore (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia).

The forum aims to foster mutual knowledge, understanding and trust in coping with common challenges to security in the Mediterranean region.

Over the last years, the 5+5 Defence Initiative has especially focussed on strengthening relations and cooperation activities related to counter-terrorism, maritime surveillance, search and rescue, and use of military assets in performing civil protection tasks. Furthermore, joint training and education are widely enhanced tools to improve, increase and standardize the operational procedures of the ten Member Countries.

Member Countries hold the presidency of the Initiative on an annual rotational basis. For 2018, Italy is in charge of organizing and developing various activities that were approved in 2017. More specifically, 45 activities were approved for this year, 19 of them to be led by Italy.

The 10th CHOD meeting started with a long session in which the Chiefs of Defence took stock of completed and ongoing activities. They also envisaged significant courses of action to develop cooperation further. The forum was also an opportunity to carry out a technical and military analysis of threats and challenges to the security in the Mediterranean region, especially as regards criminal networks' illegal trafficking and radical terrorism.

During the second part of the meeting, the ten Chiefs of Defence Staff attended a joint counter-terrorism exercise. In fact, integration of the Special Forces of the various Countries in a counter-terrorism perspective has been one of the most relevant project of the Italian presidency. The project aims to start and develop cooperation to make integrated defence of the southern shore more and more effective against the challenge posed to security and stability in the region.