On Thursday, 11 June, AmCham EU hosted a security, defence and space edition of the American Hour, members only series and welcomed Gordon B. (Skip) Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment at NATO. Roger Coelho, Senior Policy Director, AmCham EU provided opening remarks and the fireside chat was moderated by Rudy Priem (Raytheon Technologies), Chair, Security, Defence and Space Committee. Susan Danger, CEO, AmCham EU, closed the session.

The guest speaker gave an overview of NATO's efforts to combat COVID-19 so as to prevent the health crisis from becoming a security crisis and to ensure that NATO can continue to provide effective deterrence and defence. Some of the support that NATO has provided to civil authorities includes: setting up a crisis response team to coordinate and respond to requests from allies and partners, supporting regular information sharing, collection of best practices, building hospitals and providing strategic airlift for logistic support and for transporting critical medical equipment, personnel and patients. NATO has also worked together with the EU and the EU’s European Response Coordination Center to exchange information, provide logistic support and coordinate efforts, as well as on communication efforts to address the spread of disinformation which has targeted both NATO and the EU.