While Britain sought to ensure NATO remained the keystone of European security (Deighton, 1997), Paris claimed the ‘end of the Cold War had removed the need for integrated military structures’ (Menon, 2000, p. 41).
Both states recognized the need for an enhanced European contribution to post-Cold-War European security but differed in their vision of its autonomy.
The USA warned its allies of the ‘danger that positions which seem to emphasize European over transatlantic solidarity or institutional changes which diminish the centrality of the Alliance could pose for American opinion on and support for the transatlantic partnership’ (Bartholomew, 1991). German policy saw continued membership of NATO as ‘essential to the stability of a post-Cold-War Europe’ (Anderson and Goodman, 1994, p. 29), while European integration was at the ‘heart of its grand strategy’
(Hyde-Price, 2000, p. 180). Germany saw ‘no inherent contradiction between NATO and an autonomous European defence capability’ (ibid., p. 195) and Chancellor Kohl joined with President Mitterrand to press for a new European Union. These positions met with some turbulence within the NATO reform process and the Intergovernmental Conferences underpinning the Maastricht Treaty.
Anglo-American interests were invested in NATO’s attempt to anchor its position by: declaring it would adapt (North Atlantic Council, 1990);
adopting a ‘New Strategic Concept’ in 1991 (North Atlantic Council, 1991) which stressed a ‘broad approach to security’, including confl ict prevention and crisis management; and developing a new dialogue with its former
adversaries through the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. At the same time NATO declared the ‘new environment does not change the purpose or the security functions of the alliance’ (North Atlantic Council, 1991a). But within a month of launching its New Strategic Concept the Soviet Union collapsed, opening the question of the need for collective defence. If crisis management was to be the new rationale for transatlanticism, then ‘out of [Treaty] area’ roles beckoned – and problems of legitimacy. The latter were in part resolved when the North Atlantic Council declared itself ready, in 1992, to support on a case-by-case basis peacekeeping operations under the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) or United Nations (UN) auspices. But the need for political will and cooperation to mount such missions remained and, as we shall see in the case of the former Yugoslavia, placed real constraints on the new NATO.
The Franco-German agenda resulted in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 which marked a new stage in the development of the European project.
Among its commitments was the creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The CFSP structure was intergovernmental, though the Commission was to be fully associated, and decision making was to proceed by unanimity. CFSP was to ‘include all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence’ (Art. J.4.1). The Treaty did not, following British insistence, create an EU force structure but looked to the Western European Union, the European alliance whose origins pre-dated NATO, to ‘elaborate and implement decision of the Union which have defence implications’ (Art. J.4.2). The nine member states of the WEU, including Britain, who were also EU members, declared that the WEU would be developed as the ‘defence component of the European Union and as a means to strengthen the European pillar of the Alliance’
(Maastricht Declaration on Western European Union).
The pivotal role of the WEU, between NATO and the EU, became the basis of the compromise between the Atlanticist and Europeanist agendas. It sustained the myth that the European project was compatible with transatlanticism by placing European defence cooperation with the Alliance framework.
The compromise was sustained by the North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels in 1994 which declared its willingness to
stand ready to make the collective assets of the Alliance available on the basis of consultations in the North Atlantic Council, for WEU operations undertaken by the European Allies in pursuit of their Common Foreign and Security Policy. We support the development of separable but not separate capabilities which could respond to European requirements and contribute to Alliance security. (North Atlantic Council, 1994)
To implement this process NATO looked to the development of Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) to facilitate both peacekeeping missions and cooperation with the WEU. The North Atlantic Council formally endorsed the concept in Berlin in 1996. NATO envisaged the identification of
‘separable but not separate’ assets for WEU missions, including headquarters,
‘double hatting’ appropriate personnel in the NATO Command structure and military planning for illustrative WEU missions (see North Atlantic Council, 1996). For NATO, CJTF meant a sharing of assets to ensure ‘as far as possible that Europe’s CFSP effectively complements rather than compares with the transatlantic security structures’ (Schake et al., 1999, p. 22). France, under Chirac’s leadership, moved closer to the Alliance but insisted that ‘NATO’s new missions implied the need for a fundamental reform of its decision-making structures and procedures’ (Menon, 2000, p. 50). Paris looked for a European Deputy SACEUR to be given authority to command European missions and for Europeans to be given command of two regional European commands (Wijk, 1997, p. 135). The role of Deputy SACEUR was agreed but Washington insisted that an American would command AFSOUTH in Naples. As Chirac’s aim to enhance the Europeanization of NATO was only partly realized, French enthusiasm for an EU alternative was revitalized.
In the debate preceding the EU Amsterdam Treaty (1997), France, Germany and the Commission advocated the integration of the WEU into the EU. Britain rejected this proposal and led the opposition to an extension of Qualifi ed Majority Voting (QMV) to CFSP. The resulting Treaty enhanced the use of QMV when the European Council agreed and a new offi ce, a High Representative for CFSP, was to be appointed. While the possibility of integrating the WEU into the Union was voiced in the Treaty, it was subject to the ‘blocking’ clause ‘should the European Council so decide’ (Art. 17.1). This impasse was dramatically lifted by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in the Anglo-French declaration on European Defence in St Malo in December 1998. The St Malo declaration called for the European Union to ‘have the capacity for autonomous action backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’ (Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce, 1998). Blair believed that ‘Europeans should not expect the United States to have to play a part in every disorder in our backyard’ (Blair, 1999, p. 3). Robin Cook, then Foreign Secretary, explained that ‘Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo have all shown that crisis management requires a joined up approach which brings together the economic, fi nancial and humanitarian resources of the European Union with the military assets of the European countries in NATO’ (Cook, 1999, p. 6). Despite the initiative originating in London, the USA still warned the Europeans
not to ‘decouple’ from or duplicate the Alliance (Howorth, 2000, p. 45).
The London Anglo-French Summit in November 1999 sought to placate Washington with the assurance that the EU would only seek to act ‘where the alliance as a whole is not engaged’ (The Times, 26 November 1999).
The European Union took its defence policy forward in the Cologne and Helsinki European Council meetings in 1999. The operational role of the WEU was to be transferred to the EU by December 1999. The EU was to have the capabilities to perform the so-called ‘Petersberg Tasks’:
‘humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks; tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’ (WEU, 1992). The Helsinki European Council set the target of creating by 2003 a force 50 000–
60 000 strong which could be deployed in 60 days and sustained for a year (European Council, 1999, p. 3). The EU further instituted new decision- making bodies within the framework of CFSP to execute its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
NATO sought to maintain the line that ESDP was a reinforcement of the European pillar of the Alliance. The Washington NATO Summit in April 1999 acknowledged ‘the resolve of the European Union to have the capacity for autonomous action so that it can take decisions and approve action where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged’ (North Atlantic Council, 1999).
The devil, however, remained in the detail. As consideration of the planning process of EU-led operations proceeded, American misgivings grew. Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General, pledged to work to ensure ESDI (European Security and Defence Identity) ‘is based on three key principles, the three Is: Improvement in European defence capabilities; inclusiveness and transparency for all Allies; and the indivisibility of Trans-Atlantic security, based on our shared values’ (Robertson, 1999, p. 4). Washington endorsed these principles but stressed the lessons of Kosovo for European armed forces. The US Secretary of Defence William Cohen warned:
We simply cannot continue with a posture in which one member of NATO conducts virtually two thirds of all air support sorties and half of all air combat missions; in which only a handful of countries have precision munitions that can operate in all kinds of weather; and, in which some pilots had to communicate over open frequencies in a hostile environment. (Cohen, 2000a, p. 3)
The USA looked to the implementation of NATO’s Defence Capabilities Initiative (DCI) launched at the Washington Summit in 1999 and saw Europe’s emphasis on new structures as at best a distraction and at worst a threat to Allied cohesion. Cohen demanded that ‘we have to pay real attention to function and capabilities as opposed to façade’ (Cohen, 2000b, p. 2).
He explained that the USA supported ESDI because ‘a strong European pillar will mean a stronger NATO …’ but ‘here is the caveat … provided that we make sure that the capabilities that are now being discussed and debated and, hopefully, fulfi lled, will be consistent for both the EU and also for NATO. The last thing we want to see is separate capabilities developed or weak capabilities developed and bigger bureaucracies’ (Cohen, 2000b, p. 3). On the eve of the EU Nice Summit in December 2000 which was to develop ESDP, Cohen proposed a ‘common defence planning process involving all 23 NATO and EU countries as the only logical, cost effective way to ensure the best possible coordination of limited forces and resources’
(Cohen, 2000c, p. 2). Cohen warned that if ‘NATO and the EU with its ESDP are seen as autonomous and competing institutions rather than integrated, transparent and complementary ones, then NATO and collective security are likely to suffer, leaving North America and Europe alike to rely on uncoordinated, ineffi cient and ad hoc responses to destabilizing threats’ (ibid.).
The Nice Summit did not adopt Cohen’s proposal for joint planning but did recognize that ‘NATO remains the basis of the collective defence of its members and will continue to play an important role in crisis management’
(Nice, 2000, Presidency Report on ESDP, Introduction). The Summit endorsed detailed arrangements for the management of ESDP. The EU sought an ‘autonomous capacity to take decisions and, where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to launch and conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises’ (ibid.). EU relations with NATO were to
‘respect the autonomy of EU decision-making’, a regular dialogue was to
‘ensure consultation, cooperation and transparency’, and in times of crisis meetings would be increased so the ‘two organizations can discuss their assessments of the crisis …’ (ibid., Annex VII). Nice further outlined the EU’s expectations of guaranteed access to NATO’s planning capabilities and, in accord with NATO’s Washington Summit Communiqué, pre- identifi ed Alliance capacities and assets for EU use. Operations requiring recourse to NATO assets and capabilities operational planning ‘will be carried out by the Alliance’s planning bodies, and for an autonomous EU operation it will be carried out within one of the European Strategic level headquarters’ (ibid., Annex VI). For the six non-EU NATO members Nice envisaged consultation on the use of NATO assets and involvement in NATO planning bodies. For EU autonomous operations the six would be invited to send liaison offi cers to the European Military staff bodies at strategic level (ibid.). For one observer this approach ‘was backwards:
it should be joint planning fi rst, then deciding who would undertake an operation (NATO or the European Union), then considering whether
NATO assets would be needed and hence transferred, and then undertaking any subsequent planning …’ (Hunter, 2002, p. 12).
The primacy of NATO was of concern to the incoming Bush Administration. The new President reported that he had been reassured by Tony Blair that ‘NATO is going to be the primary way to keep the peace in Europe …’ and that ‘there would be a joint command, that planning would take place within NATO’ (Bush, 2001a, p. 3). The President, speaking at NATO, stressed that ‘a strong, capable European force integrated with NATO would give us more options for handling crises when NATO, as a whole, chooses not to engage’ (Bush, 2001b, p. 2). If ‘autonomy’ was to be reconciled with ‘NATO fi rst’, the issue of deciding when NATO was not to be ‘engaged’ remained central. The diffi culty of EU and NATO negotiations was matched by the parallel concern of non-EU NATO members about their potential involvement in non-Alliance missions. Turkey sought particular safeguards, which, when fi nally accommodated, led to objections from Athens which, in turn, delayed matters further.
The EU–NATO negotiations were conducted by working groups covering a number of issue areas including: security of information;
permanent arrangements for consultation and cooperation; modalities for EU access to NATO assets; and EU capability goals. The working groups were supplemented by meetings of the North Atlantic Council and the European interim Political and Security Committee of the EU. The Foreign Ministers of both organizations began meetings in May 2001. The process fi nally resulted in the December 2002 EU–NATO Declaration which led in turn to the ‘Berlin Plus’ agreement of 17 March 2003 which covers:
EU guaranteed access to NATO planning; EU use of listed NATO assets and capabilities; and NATO European Command options for EU-led military operations with Deputy SACEUR as a primary candidate for EU operation commander. The ‘Berlin Plus’ agreements enabled the transfer of responsibility for peacekeeping from NATO to the EU for operations in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia in December 2004.
As agreement between the EU and NATO appeared to be solidifying, the convergence process was challenged by Washington’s response to the 9/11 attacks (see below). The initial solidarity of Europe and the USA was lost as Washington’s agenda moved from al-Qaeda and the Taliban to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. When President Bush spoke of an ‘axis of evil’ in his State of the Union address in January 2002 the French Foreign Minster described the approach as ‘simplistic’ and urged Europeans to speak out against a Washington that ‘acts unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world at its own interests’ (Vedrine, 2002). France and Germany refused to endorse British support for the Bush Administration’s demand for regime change in Iraq. Germany made
clear its resolve to oppose war and France looked to the United Nations to be given more time for weapons inspections. Chris Patten, European Commissioner for External Relations, spoke on behalf of the EU when he argued that there was ‘no real alternative to the UN system of values and international rules …’ as ‘it offers the best hope of avoiding the potentially disastrous consequences of a spread of unilateral action allegedly to “solve”
regional disputes’ (Patten, 2002). Washington, however, did not feel bound to accept UN constraints. President Bush warned the General Assembly that America would work with the Security Council for the necessary resolutions but asked whether the UN would serve its purpose or be deemed irrelevant (Bush, 2002, p. 3). When the UN could not furnish a resolution authorizing the use of force, the USA, supported by the UK, invaded Iraq.
The implications for NATO and the EU were complex. Despite NATO invoking Article 5 for the fi rst time in its history, the USA conducted its own military operations with ‘coalitions of the willing’. When Washington requested that NATO dispatch Patriot missiles and surveillance aircraft to defend Turkey, the proposal was blocked by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg (The Times, 30 January 2003). Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Secretary, in response said it was ‘breathtaking’ (The Economist, 12 February 2003). On 29 April 2003 the same four European states met in Brussels and agreed a number of measures for defence cooperation including the establishment of an EU operational planning staff in Tervuren. The initiative was seen to breach the consensus of ‘Berlin Plus’ and for Geoff Hoon, British Defence Secretary, ‘risks sending a message of division about the creation of a defence policy separate from NATO’ (Times Online, 28 April 2003). The US Ambassador to NATO hoped that ‘this new brand of European unilateralism will be repudiated by the majority of European countries that want to preserve NATO as the pre-eminent security organization on the continent’ (Burns, 2003, p. 4). Tony Blair, excluded from the Brussels Summit, moved swiftly to heal the rift with Washington and reassert the British role in European defence cooperation. When he met President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder in Berlin in September 2003 a compromise was reached that the EU would set up an operational planning cell at SHAPE, NATO’s planning headquarters. There was also to be a new planning unit with civil/military components to join the existing EU military staff.
Despite Blair’s unimpeachable transatlantic credentials, Washington still demanded reassurance that NATO retained its primacy. The issue became compounded with debates on the new European Constitution and the possibility of a mutual defence clause (International Herald Tribune, 17 October 2000). Blair contended that ‘nothing whatever must put at risk our essential defence guarantees within NATO …’ (Blair, 2003a, p. 1) but
NATO had to hold an extraordinary meeting to address Washington’s concerns. In November Blair and Bush issued a joint statement that they sought ‘a dynamic, mutually-reinforcing relationship between NATO and the EU, without duplication and divisiveness, and grounded in the essential NATO–EU agreements which underpin it’ (Blair and Bush, 2003, p. 1).
In late November, Britain, France and Germany appeared to be close to a consensus which US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said would not duplicate the work of NATO (The Guardian, 2 December 2003). Lord Robertson described exchanges as ‘robust’ (ibid.) but in public the Western powers spoke of a ‘common success’ and ‘common vision’ (Joint Press Statement by the NATO security general and the EU Presidency, 4 December 2003) and the EU declared ‘the transatlantic relationship is irreplaceable’
(European Security Strategy, 12 December 2003). On 12 December, Blair confi rmed that a deal had been struck, ‘in a way that is completely consistent with NATO as the cornerstone of our alliance’ (Blair, 2003b). The European project, however, had not made defence an integral part of its future; as President Chirac put it, ‘we think there will not be a Europe without a defence capacity’ (International Herald Tribune, 21 October 2003).
The proposed European Constitution adopted by member states in June 2004 makes a number of provisions to enhance the EU’s external role, including: a Union Minister for Foreign Affairs; a redefi nition of the Petersberg Tasks; the creation of a European Defence Agency; and specifi c measures to enhance ‘fl exibility’ in ESDP. In addition, member states agreed to a solidarity clause in respect of terrorist attack or man-made disasters (Art.
1–43). The Union Minister for Foreign Affairs combines the responsibilities of the High Representative for CFSP and the Commissioner for External Relations (Art. 1–28). The new post therefore links the Commission and the European Council, providing a much-needed focus for external relations.
The minister will represent the EU in international organizations and preside over a European External Action Service (Art. 111–296). The Petersberg Tasks now refl ect the breadth of the European security strategy and include the fi ght against terrorism and post-confl ict stabilization (Art. 111–309).
The European Defence Agency, whose role is to provide coordination and cooperation in European armaments policy and procurement, was launched in advance of the Constitution being ratifi ed (Art. 111–311). Member states had recognized in the European Capability Action Plan in 2001 the need to remedy shortfalls in the commitment process to the Helsinki headline force goals for ESDP. In May 2004 the European Council adopted the 2010 headline goal which superseded Helsinki and included new commitments to rapid reaction battle groups which could cover the breadth of crisis management tasks envisaged in the new Constitution. The EU’s ambition was to launch an operation within fi ve days of the approval of the Crisis