Close cooperation agreed
NATO and EU raise “partnership to a new level”
01/09/2023, 7:50 p.m
Protection of infrastructure, cooperation in space and the fight against climate change and foreign powers: NATO and the EU are readjusting their cooperation. In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the original agreement has been completely revised.
As a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, NATO and the EU are striving for even closer cooperation. “As the security threats and challenges we face increase in scope and magnitude, we are taking our partnership to a new level,” read a joint statement released by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels tomorrow, Tuesday, with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel want to sign.
In the “growing geostrategic competition” with powers such as Russia and China and in the “protection of critical infrastructures” in particular, both sides want to coordinate more closely, as the text says. Closer cooperation is also required in space, in the fight against climate change and “the manipulation of information and interference from abroad”.
Summit with Zelenskyy in Kyiv
In the statement, the military alliance and the EU again appeal to Russia to end the Ukraine war “immediately”. They also reaffirm their backing for Ukraine. The USA, France and Germany had recently promised Ukraine infantry fighting vehicles of Western design for the first time.
In the EU, a number of member states are also pushing for a tenth package of sanctions against Russia, as the Swedish EU ambassador Lars Danielsson said in Brussels, whose country held the presidency of the states in the first half of the year. Von der Leyen and Michel plan to discuss aid for Ukraine with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a summit in Kyiv on February 3.
NATO and the EU are already the closest partners. However, there are different ideas about the role of the military alliance among the EU states: French President Emmanuel Macron in particular is pushing for greater autonomy for Europeans vis-à-vis Washington after his “brain death” statements. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, the USA is seen as a protective power against Russia.
The new 14-point cooperation agreement is now the third between NATO and the EU. It was supposed to be signed about a year ago, but due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the text had to be fundamentally revised.