NATO Summit

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Around the NATO table we are all working together to ensure the security of Europe, and indeed the wider security, because the security of Europe has an impact beyond its borders. Indeed, NATO is working beyond the borders of Europe, as we see with the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan. I am pleased that, as we recently announced, we are not only continuing to contribute to that mission, but enhancing our contribution.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend rightly said today that we face a profound challenge to the entire rules-based international order. Does she agree that, in deploying troops to the Baltic to support our allies there and in Scandinavia, we are defending that rules-based order and not, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, simply escalating tensions?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree. It is important that we show that commitment to the Baltic states and that we also show that commitment with, for example, the Joint Expeditionary Force that we have recently established with some of the Nordic countries. Those are important symbols of our defence of the values that we share in Europe.