NATO and European Union Cooperation on Security Sector Reform

By Arianna Biancardi and Commander Massimiliano Caramia. Originally published in the April 2023 issue of the NATO’s Security Force Assistance’s Centre of Excellence’s newsletter.

2022 was the pivotal year for NATO and European Union cooperation. Both organizations published their major political documents (the EU strategic compass and NATO strategic Concept[1]), in which they each emphasize the necessity to strengthen their cooperation to face the conflict currently taking place in Ukraine. The current year will be equally crucial in order to build an even stronger cooperation. As a result, on the 10th of January 2023, a new joint declaration was released, concerning the EU-NATO cooperation. This document promotes the strategic partnership between the two organizations on the topics that the Euro Atlantic area must face right now, reinforcing the idea that EU’s defence and security cannot be achieved and implemented independently from NATO.

The origin of the declaration dates back to the Cold War. In those days the international scenario had been completely transformed and required effective measures to respond to the adverse situation; this circumstance led the European Union and NATO to adopt a comprehensive approach, by increasing the range of operations and intensifying their respective interactions.

All of this was made possible through the enlargement of the sphere of competence in crisis management operations. Following decades of sporadic interactions, the two organizations institutionalized their cooperation in 2003 with the establishment of the Berlin Plus Agreement: a package of cooperation agreements that covered a large spectrum of topics, including the sharing and reinforcing of assets and capabilities, crisis management operations and establishing communication units. In 2016 the EU and NATO reinforced their relationship with a new joint declaration that defined seven areas of cooperation that also included defence capabilities and the maritime domain.

Despite the institutional framework described above, the Berlin Plus Agreement is not completely binding and the fields of cooperation are limited to specific topics. As a result, the agreement and declaration do not reflect the current relations between NATO and the EU both at the operational and strategic level. Indeed only two missions have been conducted under the Berlin Plus Framework.

An additional difficulty that needs to be stressed is the managing of missions where the EU and NATO are present in the same territory. A blatant example is in Iraq, where the NATO mission in Iraq (NMI) and the European Union Advisory Mission in Iraq (EUAM Iraq) coexist. The two missions have similar mandates and they report to two different ministries within member states: The European Union to the Minister of Interior and NATO to the Minister of Defence. Nevertheless, as both work for the Security Sector Reform of Iraq they cannot be considered as entirely distinct entities and need to coordinate their activities. However, there can be overlapping concerning the activity related to cross cutting topics that are dealt with by the European Union and NATO.

An important piece of the current framework that constitutes EU-NATO relations concerns the ways in which members of the two organisations interact with each other. In fact, an important analysis must be done by examining the inter-organizations between them (EwersPeters 2022): interactions between the different organisations may occur in different ways and may not always be supported by an institutional framework and may result in the organizations influencing each other. According to some studies (Græger 2016), EU and NATO staff engage in informal practices at all levels and fields of operation that are maintained even when political signals are absent and cooperation is blocked.

Security Sector Reform, Defence Capacity Building and Security Force Assistance

The notion of Security Sector Reform (SSR) is used both in the European Union and in NATO publications. The European Union’s document defines the Security Sector Reform[2] (2016) as ‘’the process of transforming a country’s security system so that it gradually provides individuals and the State with more effective and accountable security in a manner consistent with respect for human rights, democracy, the rule of law and principles of good governance” (European Commission, 2016). On the other hand, the main document that defines NATO’s concept on SSR is in the Allied Joint Publication 3.28 “Early Stages of Security Sector Reform”.

According to that publication, “Security Sector Reform (SSR) is a sensitive political process as it strives to reform the existing institutions in conflict-affected countries so they can enforce the law and provide security and justice for their citizens.’’ Doctrinally, both organisations have identified common sectors that are classified as Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Defence Capacity Building (DCB). Primarily, an important distinction to be made is that the doctrine of the two organisations is classified in a different order: according to NATO, Security Sector Reform is an activity that falls under the definition of Defence Capacity Building, while for the European Union, the Security Sector Reform includes activities that can be attributed to Defence Capacity Building. 

Furthermore, while the European Union defines Defence Capacity Building in the same general way as NATO, NATO’s detailed description of Defence Capacity Building includes Security Force Assistance activities.

In any case in the last decades both organisations focused on and implemented Defence Capacity Building for several reasons but principally their actions were marked by a hesitancy to deploy armed forces for large scale and long–term operations[3]. Pursuant to the EU framework, the activity of Defence Capacity Building includes the activities of mentoring, monitoring, advising and training that according to NATO’s AJP. 3.16 doctrine on SFA can be summarised with the acronym GOTEAM (Generate, Organize, Train, Enable, Advise, Mentoring).

However, the activities provided by the European Union in the spectrum of Security Sector Reform, even more so in Defence Capacity Building, correspond to the activities that are institutionally and doctrinally provided by NATO as Security Force Assistance activities. Taking into consideration that in the same territory there are EU and NATO missions that concur to achieve similar (and sometimes shared) objectives, the risk of overlapping functions is elevated, especially if concrete and tangible forms of collaboration are not provided for at different levels (strategic, tactical, operational).

Hence, if we analyse the operational  level, there is a concrete need to find methods for working together that can lead to fruitful cooperation.

Such cooperation should not be simply reduced to informal meetings for updating and briefing but be organized in a structured way. One example of collaboration at the operational level that has provided excellent results is the cooperation in maritime security. As maritime cooperation has always been a key security element for the European Union as well as NATO, the necessity emerged to create a permanent structured cooperation. After the renewed interest by both organisations through joint declarations, in the EUNAVFOR MED missions Operation Sophia (ENFM), nowadays Operation Irini and NATO Operation Sea Guardian in the Central Mediterranean, a cooperation mechanism was created: on a rotational basis, the two Organizations chair the Shared Awareness and Deconfliction mechanism in the Mediterranean (SHADE MED). An important fact in this example of collaboration is that there are areas of collaboration between the European Union and NATO activities (e.g., training) that are already part of the doctrine regarding Defence Capacity Building.

In the last few years, western countries have avoided deploying a large number of troops abroad. Therefore, both NATO and the EU have focused on Defence Capacity Building (DCB) and Security Sector Reform (SSR) with the purpose of enabling local institutions to provide security on their own. As reiterated in the last joint declarations, the EU and NATO should increase their collaboration in this area. But, in order to create effective and profitable cooperation between the two organisations, it is necessary to figure out an approach to work together starting from the creation of a valuable mechanism to achieve their common goals through a new framework, different from the traditional ones, that enables functional coordination at different levels whilst at the same time allowing the doctrine of the two organisations to be classified in a similar way.

[1] NATO 2022. “STRATEGIC CONCEPT Adopted by Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Madrid.” hps://www.nato.int/nato_stac_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/6/p df/290622strategicconcept.pdf.

[2] “EN OUTCOME of PROCEEDINGS From: General Secretariat of the Council” 2016.

[3]  “La Cooperazione tra l’Unione Europea e la Nato”, contribu di Istu di Ricerca Specializza N. 69”, 2007.