NATO is a military alliance of 32 member states - 30 European and two North American countries, founded in 1949. According to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties.
Brussels was not the original seat of NATO. When France withdrew from NATO’s military structure in 1966, NATO moved from Paris to Brussels. Some of you may remember the movie Le Cerveau with David Niven and Jean Paul Belmondo which has this move as its subject.
We visited the new NATO headquarters which were inaugurated in 2019. The beauty of the building reveals itself best from the air, when you can see that it looks like interlacing fingers, illustrating the helping hands that NATO members extend to each other.
The security checks at the entrance were very strict. The entire area is barricaded with a sturdy military fence. Security guards check all IDs very carefully and every car entering the perimeter is examined : its underside is investigated with mirrors and the car boot is opened. It reminded me a bit of the border controls when leaving the GDR.
We waited in a cold wind by the visitor’s entrance for our airport style security checks, which commenced at exactly 09:30 hours. Furthermore, our ID cards were checked against a list that had been transmitted to NATO in advance. We could keep our phones, but taking pictures was prohibited. It was a palpable change to the period of detente in the 1990s. But the world has changed considerably since then.
We were led to one of the “fingers” of the building, into the Washington Treaty Room. It was luxuriously furnished and every place had a plastic water bottle, a NATO writing pad and a NATO pen.
Tom Morin-Robinson from the Public Diplomacy Division welcomed us. He went straight into medias res by explaining that the two main objectives for NATO today are the preservation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and securing the integrity of the NATO territory.
Our second speaker, Emily Watts, works for Irene Fellon, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security. The office deals with the special needs of women in the military and with the disproportionate impact conflict has on women and girls. US Secretary of State Blinken drew attention to these issues by hosting a dedicated event for NATO allies and partners at the recent NATO Washington summit.
Both our speakers were very responsive to the many interesting questions from the group. In the break we were treated by NATO to coffee and tea, no biscuits though, giving us the opportunity to continue our discussions.
Before lunch, to show that we had actually been there, we were allowed to take a group picture before the NATO background. Before leaving our ’finger’ to go to the NATO Staff Centre for lunch, we had the opportunity to admire the impressive lobby, which takes up the entire height of the building, with shops and other facilities. The NATO Staff Centre with the restaurant is housed in a different, equally fenced-off part of the compound. It includes impressive sports facilities with huge playing fields, a swimming pool and a gym. I guess it is essential for soldiers to have the opportunity to stay fit at all times, even with an office job !
In the self-service restaurant the food was very good. It was also interesting to see soldiers and other staff from all the NATO member states sitting together, giving us the feeling of a real NATO community. Of course, the soldiers had their national flags sewn on their uniforms so one could easily place their nationality.
To get out of the compound we had to walk quite a long way to reach the exit. We could admire some of the gifts to NATO from the member states. Poland had given a huge Solidarnosc sign, which took up what would be the lawn of a big Belgian garden. Germany had gifted a Trabbi (you know those cars made from plastic in the GDR !) and a few pieces from the Berlin Wall. There may have been gifts from other countries, but if so, they were hidden from our view. Eventually we reached the exit, handed in our day passes and went through the turnstile. A very interesting visit had come to an end.
A big thank you goes to the organisers.

Gudrun Schmidt
German Group