Argument paper on the Vatanen report and beyond, 16 of February 2009

1. The minority opinion to Vatanen's report demands a strict separation of NATO and the EU, why?

NATO is a military alliance and by definition its focus rests on how to use force in order to fight for the interests of its member states. Furthermore, military alliances like NATO are by their very nature exclusive organizations and therefore creating front lines between members and non-members. This is all the more true as NATO is ever more frequently using military force in so called "out-of-area" operations around the globe. Although conducted in the name of peace and security these aggressive interventions have a disastrous effect for the countries being attacked – take Afghanistan as the currently most obvious example. Although the decision to authorize military force is the sole responsibility of the Security Council of the United Nations, NATO claims to have the "right" to intervene without such a mandate (as was for example the case in 1999, when NATO attacked Yugoslavia). With its "Might-makes-right-approach" NATO massively undermines and violates international law.

So every effort to strengthen NATO via a closer cooperation with the European Union is increasing the potential for international conflicts. It will also lead to a further militarization of the European Union's foreign policy and accelerate the tendency to use military force in order to "solve" conflicts and fight for the interest of the people who influence the interests of the states - all this at the expense of the vast majority of the people of the EU and the world.

2. What should in your view be the EU's security role?

Currently, the majority of the elites support a further militarization of the European Union. As justification some of them straightforwardly argue that the European Union has to enforce its strategic, political or economic interests by military force while others, like Ari Vatanen, seem to base their proposals on a Hobbesian world view, in which the European Union has to prepare itself for the everlasting war of all against all. As Vatanen writes in his Explanatory Statement to his report: "It would be self-deceiving to believe that human nature has changed for the better over the last thousands of years. Man still wants to exercise power over his neighbour both on an individual and collective level, often with disastrous results for the common good."

Based on such a world view, Vatanen and many others are advocating a further militarization of the European Union's foreign policy. They want more military capacities, a standing Headquarters, more military interventions and so on, thereby making more conflicts a self-fulfilling prophecy. The European Union is already sending its troops ever more frequently into missions abroad in the context of the so called European Security and Defence Policy (more than 20 up to now) and this process will likely accelerate if we don't make a fundamental break with the growing militarism of the European Union.

For this purpose, I advocate a European foreign policy that is based on the principles of non violence, non intervention, the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the strict adherence to international law. I argue for a civilian European Union that spends its money for civilian and social purposes instead for military means - thereby enabling it to challenge the roots of conflicts - especially poverty. Such a policy makes it mandatory to distance itself as wide as possible from NATO's militaristic approach and that's why I'm opposed to further increase the already intense cooperation with this organization.

3. How will closer EU-NATO cooperation affect EU-Member States who are not members of NATO?

Well, those who are in favour of a closer EU-NATO cooperation simultaneously argue that as a prerequisite, the EU's existing military capacities have to be further developed and the resources spent for military capacities have to be massively increased. So everybody in the EU, NATO member or not, could face huge pressure to increase its military budget and eventually to buy NATO compatible armament from the big weapon companies. Furthermore the pressure to join NATO or it's ironically named light version, the "Partnership for Peace", would increase. The formerly neutral states are already taking part - the last EU-member not affiliated to NATO, Cyprus, is at the moment facing a campaign supported by the European Parliament to join this instrument of NATO influence.

In addition there is a real risk that EU-Member States who are not members of NATO could end up with having no say how, when and under what circumstances European capacities are used in order to support wars of NATO. To name only one example, currently a "Berlin-Plus-reverse" is discussed which would create a permanent mechanism for NATO to use civilian capacities of the European Union in order to support NATO missions (read: wars). Although the concrete details of such an arrangement are not clear, yet, in the worst-case Member States would end up with having no say whether capacities of the European Union are used in support of NATO.

NATO is one of the gravest threats for peace and security in the world. It is the opposite of the goal to solve conflicts peacefully and therefore it has to be abolished as soon as possible and the European Union which is unfortunately already emulating NATO's approach in the area of peace and security should have to distance itself from this failed approach.