News story: Foreign Secretary at the Foreign Affairs Council

Today [March 6] we are going to be having a discussion about the continued role of the EU in defence and security and clearly this is something that the UK supports. We are always going to be part of Europe’s wider security architecture provided, of course, that it does not undermine NATO. NATO is the cornerstone of our Atlantic alliance and of our defence.

We’ll be having discussions about Ukraine and what we can collectively do to shore up Ukraine in view of the various threats that it faces. I’ll be briefing the Council along with my Polish colleague – Witold Waszczykowski – about our recent trip to Kiev and what we were able to discuss with President Poroshenko and Foreign Minister Klimkin about the struggles that they face, and the threats that they face, particularly in Eastern Ukraine.

We’ll also have a discussion with Sameh Shoukry – the Egyptian Foreign Minister – and we’ll be talking again about what we in Europe can do to shore up Egypt as it makes its important progress towards democracy and greater reform.