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The EU and NATO

When the EU discusses a common European defence policy the question of its relationship with NATO also arises. Many EU member states are also members of NATO - but not all of them. How close should cooperation between these two major organisations be?

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is virtually reduced to begging when it comes to asking EU member states to send more troops to Afghanistan. At the most recent meeting of NATO defence ministers in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in late October 2007, the secretary-general repeated his demand for more troops. In response several states, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, between them agreed to send a few hundred additional soldiers.

NATO defence ministers met at the end of October in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
Photo: AP

But this will do little to resolve the difficulties and tensions the transatlantic defence alliance faces in Afghanistan. Germany and France, for example, insist on increasing only the number of military instructors. France, which has a special status within NATO, has at least declared itself willing to deploy the instructors to the disputed southern part of the country.

At the October meeting the defence ministers also decided to reduce the recently established NATO Response Force to a minimum reserve because many NATO member countries feel the Afghanistan mission is placing too heavy a burden on their armies. Commenting on the decision in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 26 October 2007, Martin Winter pointed out that NATO would have "no problems managing” both the Afghanistan troops and the Response Force: "The fact that it doesn't do so is due to a lack of identity. Its hesitance to intervene reflects the insecurity about the future of the alliance.”

This insecurity could arise from the fact that, as far as EU member states are concerned, several fundamental questions remain open about which course to take. For countries like Germany and France it's not just about the future of NATO, but also about the future of a common European defence policy.

A NATO à la carte?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reignited the debate about the relationship between NATO and the EU in the area of security policy when he held out the prospect of France's return to NATO's integrated military command structures in a September interview with the New York Times. General de Gaulle withdrew the French armed forces from the military alliance in 1966.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph on 21 September 2007, British Labour MP Denis MacShane also called for France's reintegration in the transatlantic alliance saying: "France outside NATO makes the concept of a common European defence policy difficult – if not impossible.” He explained that France, together with Britain, could take the lead in the long overdue rationalisation of Europe's military policy, profile and procurement, because Europe must fight against the "enemies of democracy” in the Hindu Kush not only with "soft power,” like the Germans are doing in Afghanistan by training police and soldiers, but also with military "hard power.”

In France, however, the country's US-critical Left in particular opposes France's reintegration. According to Arnaud De La Grange writing in Le Figaro on September 26, it would prefer a NATO "à la carte” instead of having to order all the dishes on the menu.

An Intellectual Rapprochement in Sweden and Finland

But France's rejoining NATO is not the only way to boost Europe's clout within NATO in the long term. At present, 22 of the 26 NATO states are also members of the European Union, and EU members Finland and Sweden, which up to now have remained neutral, are currently discussing joining NATO.

Even now, there are more Swedish soldiers serving under the NATO flag than with the United Nations, the Swedish newspaper Expressen noted on 16 July 2007, and concluded: "It could be very useful for us to gain greater insight into these operations and wield greater influence over them.” However the country's government rejects the idea of joining at present – mainly owing to negative public opinion.

The situation is similar in Finland. Finnish Defence Minister Jyri Häkömies recently described his Russian neighbours as the "greatest challenge for the security policy” of his country. This, according to Björn Mansson writing in the Hufvudstadsbladet on 12 September 2007, was an attempt to revive the debate about NATO membership for Finland.

Is the EU Jeopardising Neutrality?

While the discussion in the Scandinavian countries and France focuses more on closeness to NATO, in Austria the question under debate is whether EU membership doesn't already contravene the country's constitutionally prescribed neutrality. In summer 2007, the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) broke a taboo by proposing that Austria abandon its neutrality principle.

Writing in the Austrian Standard on 29 August 2007, Nina Weißensteiner described the protests this provoked from other parties as "hypocritical.” "What the parties are keeping quiet about is that the European Union's common security concept, to which they have all professed their commitment, naturally entails a complete break with neutrality, which was already undermined when the country joined the EU.”

In the same newspaper, human rights activist Manfred Rotter pointed out on 24 October 2007 that the EU reform treaty lays down a "defence guarantee” of sorts for the EU, but added that the EU is a long way off establishing a common European defence policy. This, he writes, is because it lacks the possibility of exercising a moderating influence on countries that tend to have "a Maverick approach to security policy,” as the "examples of Poland and the Czech Republic regarding the US missile defence shield demonstrate.”

NATO as a Bulwark against Russia

The examples of the two Eastern European countries, Poland and the Czech Republic, highlight the differences in how EU members perceive NATO. In an article published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 1 October 2007, Nikolas Busse observed that Europe was already dividing into two camps ahead of the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest: the older member states against the new ones, as was the case at the beginning of the war in Iraq.

On the "new Europe” side, Czech commentator Luboš Palata expressed concern on 9 March 2007 in the Czech newspaper Lidové noviny that European NATO members could fall behind "heavily rearming” Russia and even behind China and India. The Times observed in November 2006 that many of the new Eastern European members still regard NATO as a "bulwark against Soviet aggression,” as they did during the era of the Cold War.

The new member states also criticise NATO for being unequipped to deal with certain challenges. When Estonian government websites were attacked last May, Kristiina Ojuland, vice-chairman of the Estonian parliament, described it as the first war of the 21st century fought with the weapons of modern technology. She noted that both the EU and NATO needed to consider "how we should react.”

Overburdened Troops

The representatives of "old Europe,” on the other hand, are reluctant to provoke Russia. The West European EU member states are instead intent on developing a global perspective and warn, like the Portuguese defence minister recently did, that the EU must assume responsibility in the world. As they see it, it does this in cooperation with NATO – as in Macedonia or Bosnia and Herzegovina – but also on its own. It is currently planning an EU mission to Chad in a bid to help refugees fleeing the civil war in Sudan.

But recruiting troops is also proving to be a problem for the EU. The Austrian daily Die Presse explained why on 28 September 2007: most EU states are also NATO members and therefore already "overburdened” by the numerous operations. Officials at NATO headquarters recently expressed concern that the pool of well-trained soldiers would no longer suffice to handle the triple burden posed by EU, UN and NATO missions.

Ending the Rivalry

The EU and NATO must therefore complement each other, former French Chief of Staff Jacques Lanxade proposed on 28 September 2007 in Le Figaro. He pointed out that NATO lacks the non-military means the EU has in abundance, while the EU lacks military capacity. "It's therefore vital to reduce the lethal political rivalry that characterises relations between the EU and NATO and resolutely coordinate their cooperation.”

But not only the NATO defence ministers' meeting in Noordwijk has demonstrated how difficult it will be to achieve this. As Valentí Puig noted in an article published on 25 September 2007 in the Spanish daily ABC: "In the EU, there is talk of a common foreign policy and a European army, but NATO's difficulty coordinating operations in Afghanistan suffices to understand why everything is advancing so slowly.”

Johannes Gernert

Johannes Gernert is 27 years old and writes for various newspapers and magazines. He studied journalism and English in Berlin and Northern Ireland and then ...
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Further articles on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » EU Policy, » U.S., » Global, » Europe
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » EU Policy, » U.S., » Global, » Europe