NATO – Declassified: Belgium and NATO

Belgium welcomes NATO

1966 marked an important year of change and adaptation for NATO. During the spring, French President Charles de Gaulle formally announced his country’s intention to withdraw from NATO’s integrated military structure, effective 1 July 1966. Though France would politically remain in NATO, the decision meant that all non-French military forces, including those stationed at SHAPE (the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), needed to vacate French territory by 1 April 1967. After several months of strategic study and political deliberation, Belgium was proposed as the most appropriate country to relocate the military headquarters of the Alliance.

For more details on NATO’s selection of Belgium for its military headquarters, see Why Belgium? and How SHAPE took shape.

By early June 1966, SHAPE confirmed that neighbouring Belgium would be the destination for its relocation. The timing of this confirmation coincided with the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers that was held in Brussels on 7 June 1966, an event that NATO promoted with a special issue of “NATO Letter” dedicated to Belgium that functioned as an introduction to the country’s history, culture, geography, economics, military capabilities, and its role within Europe and NATO.

In his opening address at the June 1966 ministerial meeting, NATO Secretary General Manlio Brosio paid tribute to Paul-Henri Spaak, his predecessor as NATO Secretary General who had just finished his last stint as Belgium’s Foreign Minister in March 1966 and was preparing to retire from political life by the end of that summer. Following the June ministerial meeting, Spaak would make his last parliamentary intervention to argue the case that the Belgian government consolidate the political and military headquarters of NATO in Belgium, with Brussels serving as the new home of the North Atlantic Council. On 30 September 1966, Spaak’s successor as Minister of Foreign Affairs, the former Prime Minister Pierre Harmel, sent a letter to Secretary General Brosio to offer his assurances that the Belgian government stood ready to welcome the North Atlantic Council, the International Staff and the Military Committee to Brussels. At their meeting on 26 October 1966, the North Atlantic Council announced its decision to accept the generous offer of the Belgian government. The Belgian era of NATO was about to begin.

Preparations for the construction of SHAPE in the Mons-Casteau region of Belgium began on 17 November 1966 with a ground-breaking ceremony presided by Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Lyman Lemnitzer, Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van den Boeyants and Belgian Minister of Defence Charles Poswick.

Source link : https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_162358.htm?selectedLocale=en

Author :

Publish date : 2019-05-03 12:00:29

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.