12/10/2026
🌍 What are different European perspectives on Europe’s future in defending itself? 🛡️
🌐 Europe’s security environment is changing profoundly: Russia’s war against Ukraine, hybrid threats, and growing geoeconomic competition. This weekend, together with the CDA, we convened young professionals in foreign and security policy for the “Den Helder Security Forum” in Breda – already in its fourth edition. Coming to Breda not only allowed us to visit the Breda City Hall 🏛️ and to learn first-hand about security policy at the Royal Military Academy situated in the castle of Breda.
At the conference, we explored the future of European security 🔭 from various perspectives, featuring Dutch MP Maes van Lanschot, German MEP Lena Düpont, Bas Wels of NATO’s International Staff and Tara Ohloff from the 🇩🇪 German NATO delegation – enriched by the diverse perspectives of our international participants from all over Europe. On top of that, we also dived into a scenario exercise ⚔️ with Diederick van Wijk, geoeconomics 💱 with Arthur Leichthammer, and civil preparedness 🌐 with MEP Lena Düpont.
⚙️These in-depth exchanges made several points clear: First, Europe needs to bring more critical thinking into its strategic policy approach. Russia’s increasingly hybrid actions have reached the point where they amount to shadow war activity. In facing such threats, societies are more resilient than politicians often assume, but citizens need a cause to defend and must know their role. Ukraine remains vital for European security, yet it is at a genuine make-or-break moment. Against this backdrop, “NATO 3.0” means a modernised NATO that returns to its core mission, putting collective defence in the East first.
🙏 Thank you to Harmen Krul for chairing the conference, to all our speakers and participants, and to the CDA and the City of Breda for being such great partners and hosts. We look forward to continuing the conversation! 🤝
