On 29 November 2016, the Signing Ceremony for the NATO Force Structure (NFS) Joint Task Force (JTF) HQ Handbook took place at the 2016 NATO Lessons Learned Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Handbook was signed by Brigadier General Mário Barreto, Commander of the JALLC, Captain Reneé van Pamelen-Hollenberg, Director NATO Command and Control Centre of Excellence (C2COE), and Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Ropejko, Branch Chief, Quality Assurance (Lessons Learned) of the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC). Lieutenant Colonel Ropejko was representing Major General Andrzej Reudowicz, Commander of the JWC. The Signing Ceremony marked the official launch of the Handbook.

The NFS JTF HQ Handbook is the result of a three-year cooperative effort between the JALLC, the JWC, and the C2COE. It combines observations, insights, and analysis from the TRIDENT JAGUAR series of NATO exercises, which took place in 2014, 2015, and 2016. The exercises aimed to test the readiness of NATO’s Graduated Readiness Forces (Land) to perform as JTF HQs, a role that was assigned to them as part of the framework for a new NATO Command Structure agreed at the Lisbon Summit in 2010. As the NATO transformational and operational communities developed the NFS JTF HQ concept, commanders, staff officers, subject matter experts, and analysts identified good practices and areas for further study and reflection.

Speaking at the Signing Ceremony, Brigadier General Barreto said: “It is a pleasure and an honour to sign this Handbook, which is an example of true teamwork between the JALLC, the JWC, and the C2COE. My best congratulations go to the authors and everyone else involved in its production.”