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, [2] and allowed the EU to draw on some of NATO's military assets in its own peacekeeping operations.
The Berlin Plus agreement has seven major parts: [1] [3]
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. [3]
To date, the EU has conducted two operations with the support of NATO:
The Army of the Republic of North Macedonia is the armed force of North Macedonia. The army is organized, prepared and trained to conduct armed struggle and combat and other actions to achieve its constitutional function of defending the independence and territorial integrity of North Macedonia. The army consists of the ground forces and the air force, which are further divided into branches and services. The army has a permanent composition and reserve forces. Since 2005, it is a fully professional defense force compatible with NATO standards.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 31 member states – 29 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber.
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 and 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 declared to be capable of being assembled for operational deployment at any one time.
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 2nd December 2004.
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 North 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 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 in 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.