The Berlin Plus agreement is the short title of a comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the EU on 16 December 2002. [1] These agreements were based on conclusions of NATO's 1999 Washington summit, sometimes referred to as the "CJTF mechanism" (combined joint task force), [2] and allowed the EU to draw on some of NATO's military assets in its own peacekeeping operations. [3]
The Berlin Plus agreement has seven major parts: [1] [4]
This comprehensive framework for NATO-EU relations was concluded on March 17, 2003 by the exchange of letters by High Representative Javier Solana and the then-Secretary General of NATO Lord Robertson. [4]
To date, the EU has conducted two operations with the support of NATO:
The Western European Union was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The WEU implemented the Modified Brussels Treaty. During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU member-states, plus the United States and Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The Stabilisation Force (SFOR) was a NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Bosnian War. Although SFOR was led by NATO, several non-NATO countries contributed troops. It was replaced by EUFOR Althea in December 2004.
Eurocorps, located in the French city of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), is a multinational corps headquarters. Founded by France and Germany in 1992, it is today composed of personnel from six framework nations and five associated nations. The framework nations place the Eurocorps at the service of the European Union (EU) and NATO, which certified it in 2002 as one of its nine High Readiness Land Headquarters.
The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is the European Union's (EU) course of action in the fields of defence and crisis management, and a main component of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
An EU Battlegroup is a military unit adhering to the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union (EU). Often based on contributions from a coalition of member states, each of the eighteen Battlegroups consists of a battalion-sized force reinforced with combat support elements. Two of the battlegroups were to be capable for operational deployment at any one time. The civil power that oversees these battlegroups is the Council of the European Union.
Operation Althea, formally the European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR), is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Agreement. It is the successor to NATO's SFOR and IFOR. The transition from SFOR to EUFOR was largely a change of name and commanders: 80% of the troops remained in place. It replaced SFOR on 2 December 2004.
The Military Staff of the European Union (EUMS) is the directorate-general of the European Union's (EU) External Action Service (EEAS) that contributes to the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) by providing strategic advice to the High Representative (HR/VP) and commanding operations through its Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) operational headquarters. From the end of 2020, the MPCC will be capable of running executive operations of up to 2,500 troops, i.e. the size of one EU battle group, as well as 3 non-executive missions.
The European Rapid Operational Force (EUROFOR) was a multinational rapid reaction force composed of forces from four states of the European Union: Italy, France, Portugal and Spain. It had a permanent staff capable of commanding operations, involving commitments of up to a Light Division in size. Eurofor was formed in May 1995 in Lisbon, and was answerable to the Western European Union (WEU) directly. It was tasked with performing Petersberg tasks, including humanitarian, peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions. With the merger of several WEU elements into the European Union, Eurofor had by and large become part of the Common Security and Defence Policy. It was eventually transformed into an EU Battlegroup and was on standby from 1 July until 31 December 2011. On 2 July 2012, Eurofor was dissolved.
European Union Force Chad and the Central African Republic, also EUFOR Tchad/RCA after the French, was the European Union mission in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), authorised in late 2007. EUFOR Chad/CAR was authorised under the same United Nations Security Council resolution that mandated MINURCAT, a UN force tasked with training police and improving judicial infrastructure.
EUFOR Concordia was a European Union (EU) peacekeeping mission in the Republic of Macedonia, which started on 31 March 2003. The EU took over from NATO's operation Allied Harmony and deployed around 300 troops to provide security to EU and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors overseeing the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, a peace settlement resolving the conflict between the government and country's ethnic Albanian community. It thus became the first ever military operation of the EU. While keeping EU's control over the entire chain of command the mission closely cooperated with NATO through transparency and regular consultations and its headquarters were at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons. France suggested fully autonomous EU operation but United Kingdom and Germany feared it will be perceived as antagonistic to NATO.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1551, adopted unanimously on 9 July 2004, after recalling previous resolutions on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, including resolutions 1031 (1995), 1088 (1996), 1423 (2002) and 1491 (2003), the council extended the mandate of the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a further period of six months and welcomed the deployment of EUFOR Althea at the end of the SFOR's mandate.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1639, adopted unanimously on 21 November 2005, after recalling previous resolutions on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, including resolutions 1031 (1995), 1088 (1996), 1423 (2002), 1491 (2003), 1551 (2004) and 1575 (2004), the Council extended the mandate of EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a legal successor to the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) for a further twelve months.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1722, adopted unanimously on November 21, 2006, after recalling previous resolutions on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, including resolutions 1031 (1995), 1088 (1996), 1423 (2002), 1491 (2003), 1551 (2004), 1575 (2004) and 1639 (2005), the Council extended the mandate of EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a legal successor to the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) for a further twelve months.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2019 was unanimously adopted on 16 November 2011, and approved the mandate of European force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This article outlines the history of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union (EU), a part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
This article outlines the defence forces of the European Union (EU), which implement the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in CSDP missions. There are two categories of EU multinational forces: ones that have been established intergovernmentally and made available to the CSDP through Article 42(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), such as the Eurocorps; and the EU Battlegroups, established at the EU level.
This article outlines the command and control structure of the European Union's missions, which are deployed as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This structure ranges from the political strategic level to the tactical level.
The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) are two main treaty-based Western organisations for cooperation between member states, both headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Their natures are different and they operate in different spheres: NATO is a purely intergovernmental organisation functioning as a military alliance, which serves to implement article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on collective territorial defence. The EU on the other hand is a partly supranational and partly intergovernmental sui generis entity akin to a confederation that entails wider economic and political integration. Unlike NATO, the EU pursues a foreign policy in its own right—based on consensus, and member states have equipped it with tools in the field of defence and crisis management; the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) structure.
The Strategic Compass for Security and Defence is a roadmap document written by the European External Action Service in 2022. and adopted on 25 May 2022 by the European Council. Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief at the time, said that it was a "turning point for the European Union as a security provider and an important step for the European security and defence policy." He also said that given the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a "sea change in EU security and defence" was necessary. The document is seen as a parallel to the National Security Strategy of the United States. It was the first time a collective threat assessment procedure was written. A lengthy list of deliverables included the birth of the Rapid Deployment Capacity, by 2025. Its intended reach was global. A lecturer thought that "Russia has unleashed the strongest push to strengthen Europe’s defence since the end of the Cold War", and that this document provided the necessary impetus.