Economic Statecraft – 2025
NATO-EU Relations: A Double-Edged Sword

The EU’s foreign policy is subject to external interference and non-EU strategies. Prolonged sole reliance on the NATO defence umbrella could create issues of double allegiance, where a member state of both will have to choose one over the other, potentially causing a disruption of the EU’s policies and even unity, Giacomo Famigli writes.

On October 19, in Naples, the G7 convened a meeting of its defence ministers for the first time. In addition to the G7 ministers, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, and the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, were also present on the same stage. As of late, the agendas of NATO and the EU have become closer;their stances match perfectly with regards to Russia and China.

However, although NATO and the EU have been intertwined for a long time, their positions weren’t always so in line with each other. In addition, the nature of these international organizations differs greatly, as NATO is a US-led, purely military organization whereas the EU is a regional, mostly economic/political organization. Nonetheless, they both operate in Europe, they are based in the same city, Brussels, and they currently share 23 member states.

Relations between NATO and the EU begin with the latter’s foundation in 1993 after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht. Relations thus developed first and foremost on an institutional level, as the original treaty mentioned NATO and its defence umbrella in title V article J, which set up the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Article J.4 recognized three actors for European defence: the European Council,the Western European Union (WEU) and NATO.Action was therefore already split but “included the eventual framing ofa common defence policy”. In 1994, NATO announced that it “will work on implementation in a manner that provides separable but not separate military capabilities that could beemployed by NATO or the WEU.” The parallel but disconnected development of the EU and WEU-NATO was pushed particularly by the UK, which lobbied for “the explicit recognition, written into the treaty, that NATO is the foundation of our and other allies’ common defence”. (HC Deb, 18 June 1997, c314 )

Later on, in 1997 the Treaty of Amsterdam rebranded article J into article 17, while retaining the distinction between the three.  

The Return of Diplomacy?
How the Transformation of the European Union into a Defensive Union Threatens to Militarise Europe
Aleksandar Raković
The European Union has already militarised Ukraine to the breaking point. It is logical that, out of supposed fear of Russia, the countries of the European Union, which form the first line of contact with Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea, would embrace additional militarisation. The transformation of the European Union into a defence union is certain to lead to the further militarisation of Europe, Aleksandar Raković writes.
Opinions

Further development occurred in 2001 with the Treaty of Nice, which promoted the “development of closer cooperation […] in the framework of the Western European Union (WEU) and NATO, provided such cooperation does not run counter to or impede” the creation of a common defence policy. Lastly, in 2007 the Treaty of Lisbon and Protocol No. 11 absorbed the mutual defence framework of the WEU, leading to its eventual disposal in 2011, thus prompting to erase its mention in the TEU. Article 17 was changed into Article 27 A, and finally into the current Article 42. Article 42.7 is regarded today as the collective defence clause of the EU, similar to Article 5 of NATO. France evoked Article 42 in 2015 after the terrorist attacks in Paris by the Islamic State , but the support provided was much more limited than that obtained by the USA in 2001 when it evoked Article 5. As of today, the EU lacks a common defence policy, hence causing NATO to be regarded as the main regional defence organization.

From a political perspective, the relations between NATO and the EU have developed along three main directions: membership, operations, and strategic goals and stances. NATO and EU enlargement involved the same countries, in similar timeframes, and in a systematic manner. In 1992, NATO and the EU shared 11 member states. This number almost doubled in just the span of a decade. Hence, NATO continued to fulfil its role in providing a defence umbrella for EU countries, occasionally even anticipating such a necessity. The lack of a purely EU defence policy never fully arose as an issue since an already well-established alternative was present. In terms of military deployments, NATO and the EU cooperated in North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. In all of these operations, the mission was initiated and led by NATO, whereas the EU often provided complementary support or took over after the NATO’s mission completion. These deployments followed the boundaries set by the 2002 Berlin Plus agreement, under which the EU may be enabled to utilize NATO assets.

Finally, strategic goals and stances are set by each organization according to their objectives and standpoints. From 2014 to 2022, the stances of NATO and the EU concerning Russia and China differed. Since the events in Crimea, NATO has re-embraced its Cold War anti-Russian purpose. Similarly, following the US-China decoupling in 2018, NATO started to warn about an upcoming great powercompetition with the Asian giant. The EU, however, continued to trade and explore new economic partnerships with both countries. The situation, however, rapidly changed in 2022 after the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine; since then, the bloc has seenRussia as a rival and China as a potential competitor.

NATO-EU goals are currently aligned: their policy against Russia coincides, they both agree on proceeding with caution with regards to China, and they share most member states. Nonetheless, the institutional inclusion of NATO in the TEU is a double-edged sword, as it provides a service with strings attached and supplementary conditions. The EU’s common defence is inevitably subordinated to non-EU interests. The use of NATO assets under the Berlin Plus agreement requires approval from non-EU countries. The EU’s foreign policy is subject to external interference and non-EU strategies. Prolonged sole reliance on the NATO defence umbrella could create issues of double allegiance, where a member state of both will have to choose one over the other, potentially causing a disruption of the EU’s policies and even unity.

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Opinions
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.