Press Release : The BIC as a Supporter and VIP Contributor at the online "2020 Transatlantic Security Jam: securing the Post-COVID Future"

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BIC
RESEARCH TEAM

 

From 12 to 14 May 2020, the Brussels International Center collaborated with Friends of Europe in a three-day virtual global brainstorm on international security challenges, hosted by IBM and coordinated by The Partnership for Peace Consortium.  

 

This year’s Transatlantic Security Jam focused on the overarching topic of ‘Securing the Post-COVID Future’. The global brainstorm was held entirely online, and brought together hundreds of experts from all over the world, from politics and the military, to civil society organisations and universities, the media and business via written contributions and interactions. 

 

The Jam was divided into 6 discussion forums which run in parallel for three days. These included ‘’Competition for Influence: In a world transformed by COVID-19’’, ‘’NATO Mission and Core Tasks in Action: Resilience, readiness and responsiveness’’, ‘’Transatlantic Security, NATO-EU Relations: Challenges and collaboration’’, ‘’Technological and Industrial Edge: Bringing technological and industrial cooperation to bear’’, and ‘’COVID-19 Relations with China: Implications for NATO and the EU’’.

 

The BIC in partnership with Friends of Europe hosted a forum on the topic of ‘’Cooperation and Autonomy: The global role of the EU post COVID-19’’. The forum was moderated by Fernando Aguiar, BIC Strategic Adviser on Conflict and EU Politics, and had Ambassador Marc Otte, BIC President and Belgium Special Envoy for Syria, as a VIP contributor. During his presentation, Ambassador Otte highlighted that the impact of COVID 19 did not much reveal new issues; it rather underlined the threat of existing ones, such as the destabilization of the transatlantic partnership and the global threat of climate change. According to Mr. Otte, to overcome these, leaders need to push on a new set of common policies (such as health and new security risks) and new capabilities on which to act quickly and decisively.

 

Overall, during the first two days, debates were broad in nature, after which moderators directed the discussions towards concrete recommendations by the end of the three-day online event. In addition, moderators used the in-depth data mining tools of the Jam platform to identify emerging idea and leading Jammers.   

 

The 2020 Transatlantic Jam will feed into a report summarising the attitudes, perceptions and innovative ideas of our jammers on how to secure the Post-COVID future. The Jam’s top recommendations and its in-depth report will be distributed to leaders around the globe.