NATO’s Place in the European Security Architecture: Cooperation with the European Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

By Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters this article was originally published in Foreign Policy Institute/Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University SAIS, in 2021.

With his statement that ‘‘we really have to work together, and we have a unique opportunity now. to strengthen that cooperation, a new transatlantic Chapter,” Stoltenberg reiterated the importance of NATO’s partnerships with the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for European security. As the complexity of risks, threats, and challenges within Europe as well as on its periphery grow, cooperation among European security organizations has become increasingly relevant. What has also become evident is that NATO cannot face these challenges on its own and cooperation with both the EU and the OSCE is even more indispensable for the development of a comprehensive approach to se- curity and crisis management considering the new complexities. Recent examples of their cooperation include efforts in the Balkan wars in the 1990s, fighting terrorism and organized crime in Afghanistan, and comprehensive approaches to crisis management in the Gulf of Aden and Ukraine. In the debates over cooperation among these security actors, the notion of European security architecture has been reoccurring. Since the end of the Cold War, the European security architecture has both been significantly shaped by the adaptation and transformation processes of its key actors—NATO, the EU, and the OSCE—and has changed these institutions’ positions over time. Considering the new security dynamics within Europe and globally, these actors need to rethink their partnerships and cooperative frameworks to address emerging challenges. Consequently, this yields the question where NATO will position itself in the European security architecture until 2030 and beyond, and how it seeks to move forward its cooperation with both the EU and the OSCE.

Over the last thirty years, all three organizations underwent significant transformation and adaptation processes. Both NATO and the OSCE had to readjust to the new security environment—NATO survived its identity crisis and search for a new purpose, and gained new core tasks including territorial defense, cooperative security, and crisis management, and the OSCE had to deal with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and adjustments to new responsibilities. In contrast, the EU’s integration project moved forward with the development of its Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), and thereby presented itself as another security provider in Europe. These profound changes in policies, purposes, and structures by all three organizations in Europe created a higher level of domain similarity and functional overlap. Given their different toolboxes, strengths, and capabilities, both the EU and the OSCE seem to be NATO’s natural partners. However, while the EU developed defense capabilities and pursued strategic autonomy, the OSCE faced internal blockages. As a result, the NATO-EU relationship has advanced more significantly than the NATO-OSCE partnership. What is more, cooperation has not been easy among these organizations and certain obstacles persist since no clear division of labor has been agreed upon.

Looking forward to 2030, this chapter evaluates NATO’s partnerships with the EU and OSCE as its indispensable allies in European security. Because of the increasing complexity and hybridization of threats—today and in the future—NATO cannot guarantee the security of Europe by itself and therefore needs other multilateral partners, especially the EU and OSCE, to deal with the demands posed by contemporary security challenges. Cooperation will also enable NATO to focus on its own core tasks, ensure fairer burden sharing and, above all, to remain relevant for European security beyond 2030. By positioning NATO’s place in the contemporary European security architecture, this chapter first reflects on the areas where cooperation is most and least feasible. It then formulates a number of recommendations for NATO’s role in the future European security architecture, how it should best make use of these partnerships, and how to move forward and create a more dynamic model of cooperation considering current stalemates.

NATO and the Contemporary European Security Architecture

How we should understand and conceptualize the European security architecture is a recurring debate, particularly among European practitioners and scholars. Here, the European security architecture refers to the institutional structures within Europe that provide peace, security, and stability on the continent and for the wider periphery, both of which have developed and transformed over time. The main actors that make up this architecture are the EU, NATO, and the OSCE, and, as some would argue, the Council of Europe. Overall, the European security architecture has gone through phases in which its institutions have had to adapt and adjust to the changing security environment within Europe and internationally. In the first phase, the build-up of the security order within Europe took place after World War II and throughout the Cold War as states created these institutions and developed a network of security and defense partnerships. The creation of the architecture relied on shared commitments to democracy, human rights, rule of law, peace and security, and mutual respect. During this time, each organization was tasked with their own specific mandates that allowed for a clear division of labor and responsibilities. This allowed them to strengthen their specific capabilities and capacities to develop their own comparative advantages and approaches to peace and security.

Renewed architectural debates came to the fore with the end of the Cold War as the EU, NATO, and the OSCE were forced to adapt and transform. New attempts at conceptualizing and defining the European security architecture have been made with different visions emerging from all sides of the Euro-Atlantic security space. What has crystallized is an overall consensus that NATO should present the central building block in the post-Cold War European security architecture, which would imply its expansion as well as transformation. The EU and the OSCE would be complementary and support this architecture. Moreover, both the EU and the OSCE have established themselves as valuable and indispensable partners for NATO in security and defense affairs in Europe and the wider neighborhood. The NATO-EU relationship is considered to be the Alliance’s most institutionalized and comprehensive partnership, whereas the relations with the OSCE pri- marily take place through informal channels and focus mainly on arms control, conflict prevention, and post-conflict reconstruction. However, despite the significant membership overlap—all NATO Allies are members of the OSCE, and twenty-one NATO member states also possess membership in the EU—the path towards partnerships took different turns. This has resulted in an uneven triangle of European security cooperation in which NATO-EU cooperation represents the strongest bond, as demonstrated by the growing overlap in functions, geographical coverage, mandates, and responsibilities.

Since the 1990s, NATO and the EU have advanced their cooperation particularly in crisis management and consultations. Historically, their relations are rooted in informal exchanges and smooth working exchanges between the heads of both organizations. The first rapprochements between the two organizations occurred in the 1990s, when NATO Secretary General George Robertson and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana (who previously held the position as NATO Secretary General) occurred over lunch meetings to discuss contemporary European challenges and common interests. Interactions and exchanges moved to include meetings between NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC) and the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) in the early 2000s, which led to three meetings per year as well as exchanges between their military staff.

The time period from the end of the Cold War in 1990 until 2004 has been perceived as the “honeymoon” of the NATO-EU relationship. During this “honeymoon” period, their cooperation was fostered through informal ties, making advancements in terms of exchanges and consultations as well as collaboration in crisis management operations such as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia. With the further development of CSDP due to NATO’s support, mechanisms for operational engagements, such as the Security of Information Agree- ment and Berlin Plus arrangements11 in 2003, were established that facilitated cooperation in crisis management operations in the same theatres.12 Nevertheless, increasing involvement in the same areas and growing functional overlap also initiated competition between the two organizations.13 In addition, the amicable relations ended with Cyprus’ accession to the EU in 2004 and the emergence of the Turkish-Cypriot double veto in both organizations. These vetoes, rooted in the Turk- ish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and still unresolved dispute as well as Turkey’s non-recognition of the Republic of Cyprus, have presented one of the key political stalemates in the EU-NATO relationship. The so-called Cyprus issue primarily limits intelligence and information sharing as well as the reciprocal veto to participation (also known as hostage-taking) in the respective other organization’s activities.

Although NATO’s relationship with the OSCE evolved during the same time period, it has not received as much prominence. Because of the OSCE’s institutional nature and thematic focus, their cooperation concentrates on areas of disarmament and arms control, counterterrorism, cyber security and capacity-building measures. Their interactions also take place primarily through informal exchanges and meetings between their secretariats as well as through annual talks at the staff level. Furthermore, what sets these two organizations apart are their different capabilities and responsibilities due to NATO’s focus on ter- ritorial defense, deterrence, and crisis management, and the OSCE’s tasks of election monitoring, political cooperation, and economic and environmental security.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the onset of the Ukraine conflict in 2014 marked a new period of relations among European security organizations and triggered a rethinking of the contemporary European security architecture. As a result of a number of joint efforts towards Russia, NATO and the EU recognized the need for enhanced coop- eration and a more institutionalized framework for exchanges, coordination, and joint exercises. The signing of the EU-NATO Joint Declarations in 2016 and 2018 can be considered a game changer and major milestone after a period of “frozen conflict.” The 2016 Joint Declaration defines seven areas in which NATO and the EU sought closer cooperation, coordinated planning, and information sharing: hybrid threats, operational cooperation, cyber security, capacity-building, defense capabilities, industry and research, and exercises. In addition, both organizations endorsed a set of proposals and seventy-four concrete actions to implement enhanced cooperation and strengthen political dialogue. As a result of more frequent exchanges between Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and High Representative Federica Mogherini between 2014 and 2019 as well as the proposals and common actions, NATO-EU cooperation has established itself as a norm and a daily practice consisting of regular staff-to-staff interactions and reciprocal participation at their Defense and Foreign Ministers Meetings. As reiterated at the 2021 NATO Brussels Summit, “the European Union remains a unique and essential partner for NATO” and their cooperation has produced “tangible results” in several areas including inter alia cyber security, hybrid warfare, operational cooperation, de- fense capabilities and military mobility.

This chapter argues that cooperation among the institutional triangle of NATO, the EU, and the OSCE is crucial for the security and stability of Europe due to their complementary roles in Euro-Atlantic security. Shifts in the contemporary security environment demand continuous processes of adaptation and new developments which have resulted in a situation of interlocking institutions where both the EU and the OSCE seem to be NATO’s natural partners. But their internal developments, particularly the EU’s engagement in military operations and developments towards greater strategic autonomy and the OSCE’s engagement in cooperative security also interfere with NATO’s own core tasks and responsibilities. Neither a clearly defined division of tasks nor a clear geographical division have so far been negotiated among the three organizations, which has severe implications for the design of the European security architecture. Cooperation and coordination in European security matters have thus become even more crucial considering the higher degree of overlaps and the rising complexity of security threats and challenges. This calls to reconsider their current relationships and the setup of the contemporary European security architecture that has become unfit for emerging security challenges. Moreover, in their reciprocal interactions, all three organizations face a number of stalemates that will need to be overcome in the future.

Full text is available: NATO's Place in the European Security Architecture: Cooperation with the Eurpean Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters is a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany and Non-Residential Fellow at the Global Europe Centre at the University of Kent. Previously, she served as DAAD Postdoctoral Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she conducted research on the European security architecture, NATO, and Germany's foreign and security policy. She is author of Understanding EU-NATO Cooperation: How Member States Matter (Routledge 2022) and published in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, European Foreign Affairs Review, and German Politics. Dr. Ewers-Peters also taught at University College London (UCL) and the University of Kent, United Kingdom, and was visiting researcher at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. She is furthermore co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Research (JCER) and co-convenor or the European Security Working Group of the British International Studies Association (BISA). Dr. Ewers-Peters received her Ph.D. in International Relations from the School of Politics and International Relations at University of Kent at Canterbury, and pursued studies in European Politics and International Relations at the universities in Bath, Bremen, and Helsinki. Her research and teaching interests broadly cover European foreign and security policy, EU-NATO cooperation, Germany and British foreign and security policy, and interorganisational relations.