Message from the NATO M&S COE Director during the COVID19 emergency

Hello from Italy and the NATO M&S COE.

As you know, the situation in Italy is very complex at the moment due to the virus.

The government has imposed a number of rules to both contain the spread of this virus and care for people at risk to this particular virus. Fortunately no M&S COE member has been infected.

For the health and safety of all, we are applying the measures recommended by the Italian Government and Italian Defense for all COE personnel, included our international members.

To support this, we have reduced manning in the office and adopted a “smart working” methodology for our staff at home to preserve our operational capability. Even with these measures, our capabilities are somewhat reduced, but we are still operating: know that every member of our COE is reachable via their email and are available to you through webex and other means.

Like many organizations, we have modified many of our planned activities, postponing what we can and cancelling what cannot be done again later. This directly impacts travel, visits, courses and participation in exercises/events.

Many of the NATO and National events we participate in have already been cancelled or are at risk, but we will work to find ways to participate to the greatest possible effect, to include participating from our Centre.

As a consequence of this situation, we are also reassessing our 2020 POW (it was very full of activities!!) and will work with NATO, Nations and our POW partners to identify how our plans for the year may have changed.

Thank you!

Stay strong and hold on! We can do it!!!