On October 29th, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in their first official meeting since Rutte assumed his NATO role.
The leaders discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between NATO and the European Union in response to increasing global instability.
The two highlighted Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine as the foremost threat to European peace, pointing to the recent deployment of North Korean soldiers in support of Russian forces as an alarming escalation.
“The deployment of North Korean soldiers in support of Russia’s war of aggression represents a significant escalation of the war against Ukraine and a serious threat to European security and global peace,” the two leaders stressed in a joint statement.
Rutte and von der Leyen also examined the growing influence of authoritarian regimes, which they stated are actively challenging democratic values through various means, including political, economic, and military tactics.
They underscored the importance of defending these shared principles in an increasingly volatile international landscape.
To address these mounting threats, Rutte and von der Leyen announced plans to establish a high-level task force to bolster cooperation between NATO and the EU. Preparations for the task force’s inaugural meeting are set to begin in the coming weeks, with both leaders speaking of coordinated efforts which they say are crucial to safeguarding “peace, freedom, and prosperity on the European continent and beyond.”
Let’s see if this is just another talking shop or an actual useful mechanism. If Trump bolts NATO would this be a way of evolving the exiting NATO structure into a more focused European entity rather than trying to create new defence structures?
Oh dear …
NATO & EU. Not sure they could agree on the colour of an orange…..
Bad move.
NATO seems too keen to add to it’s inefficiencies & hamper it’s capabilities.
Not a good idea, NATO is better as a force without the eu, which has always wanted an eu army. Can you imagine the clowns in charge of the eu controlling an army, best not to even think about it. Anyway the eu is supposed to be a trading organisation. NATO has kept the peace and protected Europe since the late 1940s and has increased it’s defensive and if needed it’s offensive capabilities since Sweden & Finland joined. Russia is well aware of this, they are the ones who inadvertently increased the strength of NATO.
The USA pivoted militarily to the Pacific under Obama. That was quite a while ago. He counselled then that Europe would have to do more of the heavy lifting in its own backyard.
That meant not only in the NATO Europe area, but also the Mediterranean littoral, Middle East and Africa. The position more than a decade later is that, Europe not having done much, the US military is overstretched, with commitments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and a resulting shortfall in the forces needed for the Pacific theatre.
If the NATO alliance between North America and Europe is to mean anything other than us living under a US nuclear umbrella, we in Europe need to step up to the plate in defence terms and take on the leading role in these areas.
The command should really be a NATO Europe one, rather than led by a US General. The population of NATO Europe is about 580 million, 50% greater than the USA and 4 times that of Russia, so a pretty large and comparatively affluent and powerful force to be reckoned with. But there is no organisation called ‘NATO Europe’. Co-operation between NATO and the EU is currently a reasonably practical solution to generating some ‘global stability force’, however that is defined.
In reality, it will most probably end up as the double-hatting of some existing NATO units plus a few small contributions from non-NATO nations. I doubt it will be any big deal.
If we want to have a capable global expeditionary force, would be far more impressed by NATO Europe forming an infantry corps, an airborne one and a marine one, plus a joint out-of-area fleet and the necessary air combat and air support elements. Until we in Europe do, anything we can collectively scratch together to go off enforcing ‘global stability’ is likely to be pretty small and a minor element in any near-peer war.
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