NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson makes introductory remarks at the opening of the annual Informal Meeting of NATO Defense Ministers at the International Conference Center in Birmingham, England, on Oct. 10, 2000. Each Autumn a different member of the 19-nation security alliance hosts the informal meeting in which a range of security issues are freely discussed, but no binding decisions are made. All binding agreements are left to the biannual defense ministerial held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.