Ms Barbara Nolan:

Afghanistan was an example I gave of how we were not able to evacuate our own citizens and refugees. We had to rely on the United States.

That was fine and it worked to some extent but that is just one example. There will be other crises in our region and neighbourhood when we may need the capacity to do something even if it is part of a peace initiative.

On NATO, we must remember many of our member states are members of NATO. NATO is the backbone of European security and European collective defence. This is the situation. We do not want to replace NATO. We do not seek to replace it. While we do not take instruction from NATO, we want to have good co-operation with that organisation. Strengthening EU defence is not contradictory to co-operation with NATO. I remind everybody that the Commission has no competence on national defence. We are not trying to take over collective European defence. What we are trying to do is have better co-operation to be able to tackle problems and obstacles together. It is a matter of European concern. I know people might not like cybersecurity being lumped in there but it is part of our defence.