BASIC'S NATO E-MAIL SERIES

NATO Foreign Ministers Meetings, December 8-9, 2004

December 7, 2004

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NATO-EU Relations State of Play as 

the EU Takes Over in Bosnia:

Organisations Face a Crucial Window of Opportunity

By Annalisa Monaco*

• Operation Althea is the second EU military operation under ESDP carried out under the Berlin Plus Arrangements
• NATO still maintains a presence in Bosnia
• Work on EU Battle Groups and NATO Response Force continuing

Relations between the European Union (EU) and NATO have reached a new dawn with the recent winding down of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and its replacement on 2 December 2004 by the EU-led Operation Althea. As Althea is carried out using NATO assets and capabilities under the ‘Berlin Plus’ arrangements and NATO has maintained a residual presence in Bosnia, the two organisations face a crucial window of opportunity. Effective NATO-EU co-operation on the ground could lead the two organisations to step up co-operation in all areas and to develop indeed a truly strategic partnership by exploiting the full potential of Berlin Plus.

NATO-EU Co-operation on the Ground: from Macedonia to Bosnia

Operation Althea represents the second EU military operation under European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) carried out under the Berlin Plus arrangements. Berlin Plus refers to a series of agreements concluded by NATO and the EU between December 2002 and March 2003 which allows the EU to carry out operations using NATO assets and capabilities¹. Such arrangements were firstly tested in March 2003 when the EU’s Operation Concordia took over from NATO in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The overall assessment was that Berlin Plus worked well for Concordia, despite some problems in the chain of command such as the role performed by Allied Forces South Europe (AFSOUTH, NATO’s regional command in Naples, Italy)^2. Countries such as France were reportedly concerned that the EU command element in AFSOUTH was not fully under EU control and that many of DSACEUR’s functions were performed by AFSOUTH, whilst other countries such as the United Kingdom regarded AFSOUTH’s role as crucial, given that it commands all NATO’s operations in the Balkans and was responsible for providing extraction forces.  

As far as Althea is concerned, NATO and the EU have acted upon the lessons learnt from Concordia with regard to the role of Joint Force Command (JFC, formerly AFSOUTH) Naples. Its role has now been fully clarified, leaving little room for future disputes. As one official pointed out, both organisations recognised the importance of having a three-tier command structure encompassing DSACEUR at SHAPE, JFC Naples and the EU force commander on the ground. As was the case for Concordia, JFC Naples, beside remaining in control of all NATO’s operations in the Balkans, will provide operational reserve to Althea in case of need.

The crucial aspect of the EU take over in Bosnia is that NATO has not left the country but maintained, at the request of the Bosnian authorities, a residual presence in the form of a Headquarters. Both the NATO HQ and the EU operation derive their authority from the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which means that they are both the legal successors of SFOR and they both can use force in exercising their tasks. NATO HQ Sarajevo has the primary task of advising the Bosnian authorities in defence reforms which are necessary before BiH can join NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP). The EU Operation Althea is in charge of implementing the military aspects of the Dayton Agreement and to maintain a safe and secure environment, while the Office of the High Representative (OHR) continues to strengthen governance structures and the European Commission focuses on implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. Whilst NATO’s assistance in defence reforms was not disputed, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) and the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) had to agree a division of labour between the two institutions with regard to other tasks. Both NATO and the EU have agreed to support the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), including the detection of Persons Indicted For War Crimes (PIFWCs), take part in anti-terrorist activities and share intelligence. 

Whether such co-operation will be smoothly implemented remains to be seen, considering also the sensitive nature of some shared tasks. For instance, apprehending PIFWCs still at large is seen as of utmost importance for both the EU and NATO as it is incumbent on both organisations to make arrests of war criminals. However, organisations’ leaders have not categorically indicated whether it will be NATO or the EU that takes lead-responsibility in this regard. The EU may consider its robust Althea mission  (with 7,000 soldiers) as the obvious lead institution. However, NATO’s IFOR and later SFOR missions have been seeking the whereabouts of chief war crime suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic for nine years, and initial reports would indicate that NATO wishes to remain fully involved in this process. As both the NATO HQ and Operation Althea are the legal successor of SFOR, it is to be hoped that the role of DSACEUR with his ‘dual hat’ as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe and EU operation commander will maximise synergy between the two institutions and avoid unnecessary rivalries. Equally, if BiH is to travel the long and hard road from Dayton to Brussels, efforts must be stepped up to fight organised crime and corruption and to achieve certain standards in policing and rule of law. If this is to happen, there is firstly a need for local political will. Secondly, there is a need for effective communication and strategy between Operation Althea and EU Special Representative Ashdown, in addition to coherence between the EU and NATO command structures in both Sarajevo and Brussels.

NATO-EU Co-operation in Brussels: Institutional Arrangements

NATO and the EU have spent considerable time in 2004 arranging a division of tasks in BiH. Both institutions succeeded in drafting the necessary mechanisms for co-operation between the NATO HQ and the EU military operation. Work has also proceeded with regard to the implementation of the provisions of a document approved by the European Council in December 2003 on ‘European Defence: NATO/EU Consultations, Planning and Operations’, which contains  the deal that seems to have skillfully dealt with the thorny issue of whether the EU should have an operational planning facility independent from NATO³. According to this deal, welcomed by then NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, the EU would set up a permanent cell at SHAPE and NATO would establish permanent liaison arrangements with the EU Military Staff (EUMS). Additionally, an EU civil-military cell would be established within the EUMS to carry out early warning, situation assessment and strategic planning. The Council of the EU may draw on the expertise of the cell when a joint civil-military response is required and no national HQ can be identified. The cell will have in fact the capacity to rapidly set up an operation centre, augmented by seconded officers from member states. The cell will reportedly be set up in early January while both NATO liaison arrangements at EUMS and the EU permanent cell at SHAPE have yet to be finalised.

According to this deal, EU operations will be carried out ‘where NATO as a whole is not engaged’. This has perhaps put to an end the equally contentious issue of ‘who’ would act in case of crisis. The Europeans have in fact four options to carry out an operation: 

1. Through NATO with the US; 

2. Through the EU in co-operation with NATO under Berlin Plus; 

3. Through the EU with an autonomous operation using a framework nation to carry out the operational planning (as was the case for Operation Artemis carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003); and,

4. Through the EU with an autonomous operation using the civil-military cell. 

However, this might not spell the end of debates about a geographical or functional division of labour between NATO and the EU. A geographical division of labour does not seem viable. NATO has taken on global responsibility through its commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq, while it remains engaged in Kosovo and Bosnia. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Gen. James Jones has also recently declared that ‘it is quite possible that one of the greatest security challenges for the Alliance will be Africa’⁴ which could be used as a testing ground for the NATO Response Force (NRF, see paragraph below). The EU, on the other side, has focused on the Balkans and carried out an operation in the Congo, while other possible engagements in Africa are envisioned for the EU Battle Groups (BGs, see paragraph below). Likewise, while it could have been argued that the EU forces were intended to undertake tasks at the lower end of the spectrum, the 2003 European Security Strategy’s emphasis on joint disarmament operations and support to third countries in combating terrorism, opens the scope of possible EU functional tasks in the future. It could, therefore, be argued that in a given crisis the organisation better suited will act, also bearing in mind that, as Southern Serbia and Macedonia showed in 2001, tackling a given crisis is likely to require close co-operation among different international institutions.

NATO-EU Co-operation in Other Areas

The above-mentioned issue of ‘who does what’ has been rekindled by the EU’s development of the BGs concept and the parallel work of the Alliance on the NRF. A BG consists of highly trained, battalion–size formation (1,500 troops each), including all combat and service support as well as deployability and sustainability assets, deployable in 15 days and sustainable for at least 30 days⁵. BGs are intended to undertake operations in distant crises areas under, but not exclusively, a UN mandate, and to conduct combat missions in an extremely hostile environment (e.g. mountains, desert and jungle). They could prepare the ground for larger peacekeeping forces, ideally provided by the United Nations or the member states. The NRF, which achieved initial operational capability in October 2004, is made up of 21,000 troops deployable within 5 to 30 days and equipped with high-tech weapons and defences against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Non combatant evacuation operations, humanitarian crisis, crisis response including peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, and embargo operations are identified as potential missions for the NRF.

As NATO and the EU rely on a single set of forces and only a few member states are able to take part in the BGs and the NRF at the same time, mechanisms for troop rotation are being envisaged and the two organisations are working on ensuring that the BGs and the NRF are mutually coherent and complementary. This work is being carried out notably by the NATO-EU capability group which focuses on ensuring the coherent, transparent and mutually reinforcing development of the capability requirements common to both organisations⁶. 

There are also contacts between the two organisations on issues like combating terrorism and WMD proliferation and on their respective activities in civil emergency planning, but co-operation in these fields has not really taken off yet. The recently established European Defence Agency (EDA), which works on capabilities development for ESDP, armaments co-operation, research and technology and on the development of a European defence equipment market, will have to establish appropriate relations with NATO which is considered one of its key stakeholders. This opens another channel of contact between NATO and the EU.

The Way Ahead

The interaction in BiH between the NATO HQ and the EU Operation Althea can be considered the litmus test of the evolving NATO-EU relations. If the two organisations manage to avoid stepping on each other’s toes and are able to send a message of unity to the Bosnian people, this could exert a positive effect on the development of a NATO-EU partnership that is truly strategic and could boost co-operation in areas such as the fight against terrorism. As NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared in Rome on 1 December, ‘NATO and the EU should aim for much more [than the transfer of peacekeeping responsibilities in BiH]’. NATO and the EU, he maintained, ‘need a partnership that covers all aspects of modern security policy: combating terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, preventing the emergence of failed states and dealing with them where and when they occur; (NATO and the EU) also need a co-ordinated policy in dealing with pivotal regions’⁷. Indeed, the NATO-EU partnership will ultimately be judged against its ability to meet common security needs and interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

Endnotes

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¹ Berlin Plus includes, inter alia, EU assured access to NATO operational planning at SHAPE; availability to the EU of NATO common assets and capabilities; and, NATO European command options, including developing the role of NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR). For further information on Berlin Plus, see ‘What does the EU agreement on operational planning mean for NATO?’, NATO Notes, v5n8, December 2003, by Gerrard Quille, http://www.isis-europe.org/ftp/download/eu%20plann%20cell-%20nn%20v5n8.pdf.

² For further information, see ‘Operation Concordia and Berlin Plus: NATO and the EU take stock’, NATO Notes, v5n8, December 2003, by Annalisa Monaco, http://www.isis-europe.org/ftp/Download/Concordia%20and%20BP-NN%20v5n8.PDF. The chain of command ran from DSACEUR at SHAPE (who was reporting to EU bodies), through an EU cell at AFSOUTH in Naples, to the EU Force Commander in Skopje.

³ For further information, see ‘What does the EU agreement on operational planning mean for NATO?’, NATO Notes, v5n8, December 2003, by Gerrard Quille, http://www.isis-europe.org/ftp/download/eu%20plann%20cell-%20nn%20v5n8.pdf.

⁴ Atlantic News, 18 November 2004.

⁵ On 21 November 2004, EU defence ministers agreed to create 13 Battle Groups by 2007.

⁶ NATO and the EU are currently trying to fill their capabilities gaps with the Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) and the European Capability Action Plan (ECAP), respectively. The PCC and the ECAP co-operate in 6 areas: defences against Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) weapons, medical, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), strategic air and sea lift and air-to-air refuelling.

⁷ http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2004/s041201b.htm.

*Annalisa Monaco is an independent consultant based in Brussels, and can be reached at the following e-mail address: amonaco at isis-europe.org

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