Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with counterparts in NATO countries on the new NATO Force Integration Unit to be built in Romania.

I frequently have calls with my NATO counterparts and discuss a range of issues including NATO. We are in regular contact with Romania and NATO Allies on the implementation of NATO’s Readiness Action Plan (RAP) agreed at the Wales Summit last September, which includes the development of the NATO Force Integration Units (NFIU) in six eastern Allies. In March 2015, the Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr Fallon), visited Romania, calling on the President, Prime Minister and Defence Minister to discuss these issues. NATO Defence Ministers met in Brussels on 24-25 June to assess progress since Wales. It was agreed that overall there continued to be good progress on RAP implementation and that the six NFIUs would be fully manned by the end of the year. The UK is playing a leading role in this effort. Romania’s NFIU will support planning, conduct host nation liaison and facilitate the rapid deployment of the new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force. The UK will support the NFIU through the provision of a Staff Officer.