If you believe proximity breeds collaboration, take a ride on bus 12 from the centre of Brussels to the city’s main airport at Zaventem. Within minutes of each other, the European Union’s political institutions and the NATO headquarters will pass by the window. And yet there are few instances of these two overlapping blocs, which evolved concurrently in the wake of the Second World War, working together effectively.
Both projects aim, in some way, to guarantee European security. NATO was established in 1949 to deter aggressive expansion by the Soviet Union following its triumph in the war. Two years later, the EU founders’ principal aim – achieved but now largely forgotten under mountains of regulation – was to ensure lasting peace between France and Germany.
Since then, the two organisations have largely achieved their objectives and expanded their memberships, with most European countries now belonging to both. They are broadly emblematic of Western democracy and the post-war world order of nation states. However, throughout most of their shared history, there has been scant evidence of co-ordination between them
“NATO and the EU live in the same city but in different worlds,” says Ian Lesser, head of the Brussels office at the German Marshall Fund. Both organisations have different capacities and assets available for use, he says, with NATO focusing on strategic security threats and the EU operating mostly in the areas of economics, regulation and trade.
Nevertheless, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has narrowed the gap: the EU has since overseen the provision of more than €108bn in aid to Ukraine, imposed 14 rounds of sanctions on Russia and banned many of the country’s energy imports. It has also directly funded the training of Ukrainian soldiers and the provision of military equipment sourced from member states. As a result, the EU is moving increasingly into the realm of pan-European security and defence traditionally occupied by NATO.
US dependence
From its 12 founding members, NATO has steadily grown to encompass 32 allies, including 23 of the EU’s 27 member states – the exceptions being Austria, Cyprus, Ireland and Malta. Finland joined last year and Sweden joined earlier this year, with the latter abandoning more than 200 years of formal neutrality in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The last two years have also seen NATO members increase their military spending. “In 2024, we expect two-thirds of allies to meet or exceed the target of two per cent” of their GDP being spent on defence, outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote in the alliance’s annual report this year. In 2014, when the target was set, only three allies met it.
Still, the United States accounted for about two-thirds of total NATO spending last year, a result of its vast economy – larger than the entire EU combined – and its defence spending of 3.5 per cent of GDP. Within NATO, this was second only to Poland, which spent 3.9 per cent of its GDP on defence.
For European countries to expand their military power “means spending more money,” Lesser says, “but also building a defence-industrial base and having the political will to use the forces more readily.”
Expanding the military-industrial complex could make increased defence spending more palatable for European leaders, as more of that money would remain within their own economies rather than being paid to US defence manufacturers.
Rebalancing military spending could also open negotiations on NATO’s European command structure. Traditionally, the alliance’s top military officer, the supreme allied commander Europe (SACEUR), is an American nominated by the US president, whereas NATO’s diplomatic leader, the secretary general, is a European nominated by consensus among the members.
“As a more European NATO emerges… this might entail some revision of the NATO command structure, as well as of the flags assigned to the various posts, giving a more prominent role to European flag officers,” says Camille Grand, lead defence researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and formerly a senior official at NATO.
European capabilities
The possibility of former US President Donald Trump assuming the presidency again has prompted European leaders, who have been content for decades to follow America’s lead on defence matters, to start seriously considering their own capabilities.
The former president has suggested the US shouldn’t come to the defence of a fellow NATO member that has failed to meet its spending target, which would contravene the alliance’s most straightforward provision: that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. The deterrent power of Article 5 is such that it has been invoked only once, in 2001, following the September 11 attacks on the US.
“We don’t know what will happen with a Trump administration this time,” says Grand. “We will need to be more capable [of dealing with] contingencies by ourselves, [ones] in which the US won’t be as valuable as one might hope.”
“A NATO that is more European is also less reliant on key US capabilities,” he adds, referring to elements of NATO’s defence posture that currently depend on the involvement of US forces, including integrated air and missile defence and long-range precision strikes.
If Europe is to pull more weight, the EU is a natural forum to co-ordinate its efforts, Grand tells The Parliament. “Exchanges at the highest political level between the NATO secretary general and the Commission president have now become natural – and the same applies to working relations at the technical level,” he says. However, such co-ordination is still not happening in a systematic way.
Grand suggests that Mark Rutte could grease the wheels when he becomes secretary general of NATO in October. Rutte was previously prime minister of the Netherlands for 14 years, stepping down in July this year, meaning he has in-depth knowledge of the EU and up-to-date contacts at the highest level.
There is appetite for a greater EU role in defence at the top of the European institutions, too. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, setting out the priorities for her next term to the European Parliament in July this year, said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “wake-up call for Europe to give itself the means to defend and protect itself and to deter potential adversaries.”
“We will continue to extend our co-operation with NATO to cover all threats, including new dangers linked to cyber, hybrid or space, and to strengthen our transatlantic partnership,” she said, proposing to scale up the European Defence Fund for joint procurement.
Giovanna De Maio, a professor of EU foreign policy at Sciences Po in Paris, says the EU needs to be empowered in military decision making to co-ordinate the efforts of its member countries, none of which are big enough to provide effective defence at a strategic scale on their own.
“In addition to more spending and filling capability gaps, the bloc also needs to improve its political processes – which includes, for example, qualified majority voting in some of the foreign affairs and defence matters,” she says. Currently, voting on security matters in the EU Council requires unanimity, meaning any one of the 27 member states can veto a decision.
Shifting priorities
A victory in November’s US presidential election for Vice-President Kamala Harris, Trump’s rival, shouldn’t necessarily signal to European leaders that the danger has passed, says Lesser from the German Marshall Fund. America’s attention is turning increasingly towards its rivalry with China.
“Any [US] administration is going to face the tension between European security commitments on the one hand, and demands growing in East Asia on the other,” he says.
The threat is reflected in official NATO documents. In July, at a summit in Washington to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary, leaders made a joint declaration that “China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values.”
China has, in the past few years, stepped up its military exercises around Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory. Any Chinese military action against the island state could prompt the US to intervene, putting it in conflict with a large and sophisticated military power. That in turn might require the redeployment of US assets away from the European theatre.
That means European powers need to be able to look after themselves, Lesser says. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan “could potentially happen any time – and even more dramatically at a moment when there is already a war going on in Europe,” he adds.