THE EU-NATO RELATIONS: (IM)POSSIBLE AND (UN)WILLING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Keywords:
European Union, NATO, strategic partnership, transatlantic relations, Berlin-plus agreement, EU militarization, crisis managementAbstract
The author is considering the relations between the European Union and NATO, starting from their foundation until today. Apart from short historical review of the development of mentioned relations, the article aims to offer one insight on the conceptual differences between the two organizations and the original intentions behind their creation. This is in order for better understanding of the complex character of their relations and the mutual links that were intertwined during the Cold War and especially afterwards. The starting hypothesis is that the EU-NATO relationship was always quite strained and ambivalent, so common postulate advocated by certain scholars that EU and NATO were all the time in strategic partnership working in the same direction without notable misunderstandings or frictions is not tenable. Transatlantic cooperation was fluctuating in dependence of the concrete historical moment and was not completely stable. Furthermore, it will be argued that essential interest of the EU and NATO are to remarkable degree different and this will hardly be changed if the structure of the two organizations stays as it is. Also, harsh discrepancies in military power and capabilities make genuine strategic partnership almost impossible, while the efforts to transcend this gap were mostly thwarted by stronger partner (NATO), or its most powerful member. The European path towards militarization and strengthening of its own hard power instruments was characterized by many “ups and downs” in constant fear of duplicating NATO capabilities and was eventually minimized for economic and political reasons. In the last years (and especially during 2016) we are witnessing more sincere intentions on both sides to develop balanced relation and get closer to real partnership, but it is not so evident whether the two (EU in particular) are ready for implementing fresh ideas, bearing in mind internal problems and other urgent issues that arise.
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