Thank you, Chair, Admiral! General Grynkewich and Admiral Vandier! Distinguished members of the Military Committee! It is my real pleasure to welcome all of you here in Latvia for your NATO’s Military Committee Conference. This is actually the first meeting of senior NATO military leadership after the NATO Summit in the Hague. It was a decisive shift in Alliance’s resolve to make NATO stronger. To make the Alliance more capable and more lethal by investing 5% of GDP in defence. At that Summit we all reaffirmed our commitment to NATO. To the strongest Alliance in history and also we reaffirmed our commitment to the transatlantic bond. But I am sure that we all acknowledge that this is also a test case for Europe’s ability to step up. For…