At the opening of the session, the participants will be addressed by NATO PA President, US Congressman Gerald Connolly, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Antonio Costa and Parliament Speaker Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix and US State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried.

In the course of the Annual Session, there will be meetings of the five NATO PA committees: Political Committee, Defence and Security Committee, Economics and Security Committee, Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security and Science and Technology Committee. In the course of the meetings, the participants will be addressed, among others, by Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva, Minister of National Defence Joao Gomes Cravinho, Chief of the General Staff Admiral Antonio Silva Ribeiro, NATO Assistants Secretary General for Operations and for Emerging Security Challenges, John Manza and Davic van Weel respectively, as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence Matters Major General Jurgen Brotz.