The ‘CIOR Late Summer Congress 2020’ was kicked off with an opening ceremony in Tallinn’s ‘Freedom Square’ Sunday afternoon, and Monday morning the Executive Council and various committees started their work.
By: Sqn Ldr (R) Michael Cairns, Royal Air Force/ CIOR Public Affairs
A photo gallery from the opening ceremony can be found here !
Seven national Vice Presidents participated physically in the Council meeting, and 15 participated remotely via the “Zoom” online video conference tool.
The essential work of CIOR as the body which links reservist organisations across NATO has taken a key step forward with the start of a COVID crisis delayed Summer Congress in Tallinn, Estonia.
The COVID crisis has changed the way the world works and CIOR, which advises NATO on reservist issues is no different, with the Congress being a mix of face-to-face and online participation in order to reduce the risk of virus contamination.
Twenty-two countries participated in the opening Executive Committee, 15 of them via digital conferencing and 7 represented in person in the congress meeting room.
CIOR President, Col. Chris Argent of the UK who was amongst those who travelled to Estonia, acknowledged the unique circumstances and paid tribute to the work of those who had made the event possible and stressed that the work had to go on.
“Shutting down completely would have been a serious blow to CIOR with serious consequences,” said Colonel Argent.
“The COVID situation is one we will have to live with for the forseeable future and it is deeply disappointing that I can’t meet you all in person as I regard you all as friends and colleagues. But I want to pay tribute to our Estonian hosts who have put in so much terrific effort to ensure that the Congress could take place and for those of us in Tallinn that we can do so safely,” said Col Argent in his address to the delegates on screen and in the room.
Nations that had sent delgates included, the UK, Spain, Sweden, Albania, Austria, Greece and of course hosts Estonia. Estonia will take over the CIOR Presidency following Germany in 2022.
Also meeting in the Congress hotel were participants in the Young Reserve Officers and Reserve Officers programme in which junior officers get to meet and learn from colleagues around the NATO alliance and to work through exercises to build mutual understanding.
Col Argent said the Executive Committee was looking forward to attending a seminar run by the International Centre for Defence and Security during congress week because of the high calibre of attendees and the opportunity to raise CIOR’s profile with key figures such as Defence and Foreign Ministers from many NATO countries.
One of the three topics at the seminar , titled ABCD 2020, is the role of Reservists – so having the body which represents and reflects reservists from across the Alliance in the room could hardly be more relevant.
“This will be a great opportunity to create a new contact for CIOR,” said the President. “It gives us a unique opportunity to present ourselves and build relationship.”
Estonian armed forces photos from CIOR LSC.