LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Summer 2007

by Ana Maria Gomes

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Sir,
I read with great interest the article by Roberto Menotti and Paolo Brandimarte on the need to eliminate the ambiguities that plague NATO's relationship with the European Union as the latter steps increasingly into the domain of security. They argue that the present requirement for NATO always to reach a consensus makes life difficult both for the EU, which wants to be taken seriously as a security actor in its own right, and for the US, which feels impatient about “war by committee” and alliance politics. The answer, according to the authors, is to create a two-tiered NATO, with the European Union taking the lead in security affairs in its own neighbourhood. This suggestion is innovative and bold but, in my opinion, suffers from three serious shortcomings.

Firstly, there are problems over the definition of Europe’s “neighbourhood”. Who would decide the boundaries of the "geographical perimeter" of EU operations where European commands would take precedence over NATO’s? Even if this question could be answered, limiting the EU to a regional remit would run counter to the European Security Strategy’s declared ambition to develop a global security role for the European Union. The entire Capability Development Plan, for example, which closely involves the EU Military Staff and the European Defence Agency, is designed to make European forces more deployable, sustainable and interoperable way beyond the EU’s vicinity. Operational experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 and 2006, and in the Indonesian province of Aceh in 2005-06, shows that the EU is learning how to use its combined military assets in modest but increasingly sophisticated out-of-area deployments. It has done so without access to "US military prowess as the best projection-multiplier", as deemed essential by the article’s two authors.

Secondly, NATO and the EU are completely different animals, sharing neither an underlying raison d’être nor a modus operandi. NATO’s core identity is as a military alliance committed to collective self-defence, characteristics that will remain its main attractions for present and future members. In contrast, the European Union’s external action includes many non-military aspects ranging from humanitarian aid to post-conflict reconstruction. While the EU’s security interests may overlap NATO’s, especially after NATO became more expeditionary in the 1990s, the European Union is not a military alliance. Certainly, a more mature and capable European Security and Defence Policy would do much to strengthen Europe’s contribution to NATO. But how could the EU become a “second pillar” of NATO when its whole approach is fundamentally different, and when EU decision-making in the field of security remains inextricably linked to other facets of its external activities?

Finally, their article, ambitious as it is, fails to address those aspects of EU-NATO relations that need urgent attention, including the Berlin Plus package of agreements which form the basis for practical cooperation between the two organisations. The authors rightly decry the limitations of the accord, which effectively restricts formal discussions to the EU’s Operation Althea peace-keeping and reconstruction efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Clearly, an agreement which excludes Kosovo, Afghanistan and terrorism from the official agenda is detrimental to long-term planning and coherent action on the ground. To overcome their operational difficulties, NATO and the EU must work more closely together and communicate more effectively. They also clearly need to move beyond the childish dispute between Turkey, Cyprus and Greece about access to classified information and overcome France’s insistence that the two organisations keep their distance.