Finnish experts see problems in cooperation between EU and NATO

France favours EU orientation, while UK leans on NATO

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According to a number of Finnish experts, there are serious problems in cooperation between the Brussels headquarters of the European Union and that of NATO.
      "The fact is that cooperation is not working", said Finnish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary of State Markus Lyra on Tuesday.
      Lyra was speaking at an event organised by Europe Information, marking the publication of a book Yhteisten arvojen puolesta? Suomi ja EU:n kriisihallinta ("On Behalf of Common Values? Finland and EU Crisis Management").
      in recent years the EU has worked to develop its defence policy, and has increased its crisis management operations.
     
Meanwhile, NATO hopes to change from being a traditional defence alliance into a global actor in crisis management. The result is that the EU and NATO are increasingly working on similar operations.
      Last year both NATO and the EU, acting separately, helped Georgia in the destruction of old weapons.
      In Sudan they also worked separately to help arrange air transport for the African Union.
     
Differences between large EU member states are seen to be the main reason for the difficulties in cooperation with NATO.
      France is pushing for a more European-oriented defence system, while the UK prefers to operate through NATO in cooperation with the United States.
      At meetings between the EU and NATO, planning of cooperation is made more difficult by NATO-member Turkey, which opposes the participation of EU member states Cyprus and Malta in the meetings. The reason given by Turkey is that these two countries do not have a Partnership for Peace agreement with NATO.
      This is why it has not been possible to discuss issues such as the situation in Afghanistan or Iraq at the meetings. Discussions are largely limited to an operation in which the EU is supported by NATO - that is, the Althea operation in Bosnia, said Heikkki Savola, secretary of the Parliamentary Defence Committee. He adds that discussions at meetings are generally quite superficial.
     
Tensions between the EU and NATO mean that resources are sometimes wasted. In the worst of cases this can cause delays in reacting to crises, said Teija Tiilikainen, an expert in European affairs.
      Tiilikainen says that the problem could get worse, as activities duplicated by the EU and NATO increase. Instead of cooperating, the two organisations compete with each other.
      "Power in security policy is no longer a question of which country is able to protect its own territory and with what weapons. Nowadays power means the capacity of a country to be present somewhere else", Tiilikainen said.
     
In an ideal situation, Tiilikainen says, NATO and the EU would benefit from each other. NATO could lend goods and equipment to the EU if NATO does not want to take responsibility for an entire operation.
      NATO could concentrate its power onto certain operations, if the EU takes responsibility for crises of a certain size and duration.
     
"The EU's crisis management is also more all-inclusive than that of NATO, because the EU also has civilian crisis management, which NATO does not have", Tiilikainen pointed out.
      Lyra emphasised that the problems between the two organisations concern administrative planning. In many crisis areas and in exercises, the two work together very well.


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  Europe Information website

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