News: More Allies Join NATO’s Multinational Ammunition Stockpile Initiative November 16, 2022
Hungary and Romania have joined the Multinational Ammunition Stockpile Initiative, which enables allies to effectively and jointly manage ammunition stockpiles. On the sidelines of the Autumn Meeting of National Armament Directors at NATO Headquarters on Wednesday (16 November 2022), the current participants in the Multinational Ammunition Stockpiling Initiative (Belgium, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the NATO for support and procurement) welcomed Hungary and Romania to this important project of high visibility.
The long-term goal of the Multinational Ammunition Stockpiling Initiative is to improve the way NATO allies and partners store and distribute ammunition stockpiles. This will help free up funds for other defense purposes.
The project is of particular importance to NATO’s deterrence and defense in the eastern part of the alliance: it aims to support the Allies’ contributions to NATO’s eight multinational battle groups (stationed in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) with a flexible storage solution stockpile of ammunition. “With Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, MAWI has gained great importance in addition to efficiency improvements. The expansion of NATO’s multinational battlegroups on the eastern flank requires upgrading the logistics support infrastructure to match this scale,” said Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment Wendy Gilmour.
Allies contribute to battlegroups on a rotational basis, meaning that their units and equipment move around periodically. Storing their ammo in storage instead of moving it with each rotation extends the life cycle of the ammo by reducing the negative impacts of movement. The first storage solution was opened in March 2022 in Estonia.
