FORUM DE DEFENSE ET DE STRATEGIE
Organisers
Trilateral Seminar 2025 – The Transatlantic Security Architecture: Developments and Perspectives
This edition of the seminar marks a first: for the first time, the format brought together France, Germany, and Canada in a trilateral approach. This choice comes in the context of an international environment shaped by the Republican victory in the United States in 2024 and increasingly hardline rhetoric from Moscow regarding Central and Eastern Europe. In this setting, cooperation between these three states – closely aligned economically, militarily, politically, and diplomatically, and representing significant weight within Western democracies – offers a unique forum for reflection, shielded from the criticisms often levelled at other transatlantic formats.
Dates: July 3 and 4, 2025
Location: Paris
Speakers (non-exhaustive list): Frances Allen, retired Lieutenant General and former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces; Stéphane Dion, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Canada to the EU and Europe; François-Marie Gougeon, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning at NATO; Ben Hodges, retired Lieutenant General and former Commander of US Forces in Europe; Roderich Kiesewetter, Member of the German Bundestag; Professor Christian Leuprecht, Visiting Researcher at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies; and Natalia Pouzyreff, Member of the French National Assembly.
Organised in a Track 1.5 format (Chatham House Rule for the Thursday and Friday morning sessions), the seminar alternated between closed-door roundtables and plenary sessions, bringing together political decision-makers, military experts, academics, and industry representatives from the three countries, along with selected European guests. Discussions covered Arctic defence, defence industrial capabilities, transatlantic minilateralism, the deployment of rapid reaction forces, and the integration of new technologies (AI and cyber) into military procurement.
Two panels were open to the public on Friday afternoon and recorded, allowing for wider dissemination of the discussions:
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Open Panel 1: Mini-lateral agreements within the transatlantic security architecture: a tool for strengthening cooperation or a driver of division?
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Open Panel 2: What scenarios lie ahead for Ukraine, and how should Europe’s security architecture adapt?
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