The Berlin Plus agreement is the current framework for NATO-EU relations. It lays the foundation for cooperation between the two organizations, including command agreements and support for operational planning. In practice, these allow the Alliance to support EU-led operations that do not involve all NATO member states. For the EU, however, Berlin Plus also meant the task of building an autonomous European defense after European states failed to agree on intervention in the former Yugoslavia. It also revealed tensions between Member States, as it was inconceivable for the most convinced Atlanticists of them, such as Britain, Denmark or the Netherlands, to envisage a truly autonomous, let alone independent, European defence. The result of these in-depth negotiations was the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. In this agreement, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom agreed to consider an attack on an attack on all, as well as consultations on threats and defence issues. This collective defence agreement formally applied only to attacks on signatories that took place in Europe or North America; Conflicts in colonial zones were not included. After the treaty was signed, some of the signatories asked the United States for military assistance.
Later in 1949, President Truman proposed a military assistance program, and the Mutual Defense Assistance Program was passed by the U.S. Congress in October, allocating about $1.4 billion to build Western European defenses. The Berlin Plus Agreement is the short title of a comprehensive set of agreements concluded between NATO and the EU on 16 December 2002. [1] These agreements were based on the conclusions of the 1999 NATO summit in Washington, sometimes referred to as the CJTF mechanism[2], and allowed the EU to use some of NATO`s military assets in its own peacekeeping operations. Nevertheless, this agreement has proven its limitations and its inability to meet the needs of the partners, since it has only been used twice and each time simply to replace existing operations in the Balkans. Indeed, the EU Member States do not use it for both political and practical reasons, in particular: this operational body is considered too cumbersome and they prefer to use the national headquarters (Mont-Valérien in France for EUFOR-Tchad or Rome for EUNAVFOR Sophia). Since the Berlin Plus agreement in 2003, circumstances have changed dramatically. Nevertheless, echoes of old debates have recently resurfaced, showing that the frictions to which Berlin Plus reacted still exist. US demands for more European defence spending are more urgent – but its response to the EU`s proposals for military capability and autonomy reflects suspicions of the past. The EU has recognised the opportunity to become a serious player in the field of defence and security, but its ambitions continue to be limited by the LACK OF KEY EU capabilities, which will soon be exacerbated by Brexit. However, instead of updating the Berlin Plus agreement, it would be more appropriate to consider developing a functionalist strategy and building on the existing cooperation that already exists outside the Berlin Plus framework. For example, NATO and the EU have cooperated on sectoral issues.
Indeed, NATO`s Operation Active Endeavour served as a support to EUNAVFOR Sophia in monitoring migration flows. The two organisations also collaborate with NATO`s Cyber Incident Response Capability and the Cyber Emergency Response Team for the EU institutions in the areas of cyber defence and cybersecurity. The Berlin Plus agreement consists of seven main parts:[1][3] Despite the general agreement on the concept behind the treaty, it took several months to work out the exact terms. The U.S. Congress had welcomed the persecution of the international alliance, but remained concerned about the wording of the treaty. Western European nations wanted assurances that the United States would automatically intervene in the event of an attack, but under the U.S. Constitution, the power to declare war rested with Congress. The negotiations were aimed at finding language that would reassure European states, but would not force the United States to act in a way that violates its own laws. In addition, Europe`s contributions to collective security would require large-scale military support from the United States to support the reconstruction of Western Europe`s defense capabilities. While European nations advocated individual subsidies and aid, the United States wanted to condition aid on regional coordination. A third point was the question of scope.
The signatories of the Brussels Treaty preferred that membership of the Alliance be limited to the members of that treaty plus the United States. U.S. negotiators believed that extending the new treaty to North Atlantic countries, including Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland and Portugal, could gain more. Together, these countries held an area that formed a bridge between the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which would facilitate military action if necessary. In addition, NATO-EU relations depend on the conflict between Cyprus and Turkey. Indeed, the Turkish authorities want to have the guarantee that the EU cannot benefit from automatic access to NATO funds for an operation that does not have the consent of all Alliance members. In addition, Cyprus does not have a security agreement with NATO on the exchange of secret documents, but despite Turkey`s opposition, it participates in official NATO-EU summits. The agreement signed in 2002 did not really resolve the tensions between the two organizations and no longer reflects the current strategic situation. In fact, NATO and the EU had adopted a comprehensive approach to security in the early 2000s.
Both organisations have moved towards crisis management missions and peacekeeping operations, mainly located outside the Euro-Atlantic area. In addition, Berlin Plus aimed to institutionalise the links between the EU and NATO that did not exist during the Cold War. The agreement was also part of NATO`s relegitimization strategies: it aimed to establish links with existing organisations in order to demonstrate NATO`s relevance and ensure its sustainability. Commonly known as the ”Berlin Plus” agreements, signed in March 2003, provide for the European Union (EU) to leverage NATO`s resources and capabilities for operations in which the Alliance is not militarily involved. After long delays on the Cyprus issue, the agreement was only successfully implemented in 2003 with the transfer of NATO operations to the EU in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (2003) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2004). The countries of Western Europe were ready to consider a collective security solution. In response to rising tensions and security concerns, representatives of several Western European countries have come together to form a military alliance. Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Brussels Treaty in March 1948. Their treaty provided for collective defence; When one of these nations was attacked, the others were forced to help with the defense. At the same time, the Truman administration introduced peacetime conscription, increased military spending, and called on the historically isolationist Republican Congress to consider a military alliance with Europe. In May 1948, Republican Senator Arthur H.
Vandenburg proposed a resolution proposing to the president to seek a security treaty with Western Europe that would be consistent with the Charter of the United Nations but existed outside the Security Council, where the Soviet Union had veto power. The Vandenburg resolution was adopted and negotiations on the North Atlantic Treaty began. The Berlin Plus Agreement ensures that the EU has access to NATO`s planning capabilities, which contribute to your military operations through the identification of command options, procedures for the release and recovery of NATO assets and capabilities, and the exchange of intelligence within the framework of mutual security rules. Therefore, the spirit of this functionalist method is mainly pragmatic, and its objective would be to develop and identify specific areas in which cooperation is desirable and feasible, ad hoc with coalitions of good will, rather than trying to elaborate a new institutional framework, the negotiations of which would certainly raise tensions over burden-sharing, the Turkish Cypriot conflict or European strategic autonomy. While operationally practical and mutually beneficial, any future Berlin Plus operation faces political obstacles, both within NATO and within the EU. First, Berlin Plus was founded at a time when the EU did not have sufficient resources and capabilities to deal with crises. .
