Research On EU - NATO Strategic Partnership

EU-NATO Strategic Partnership(ENSP) is a kind of institutional arrangement in order to cooperate between EU and NATO. This study asks two questions: What are the causes of the ENSP? What is the effect of the ENSP?After the end of the Cold War, the strategic background of European security and co-operation changed. The security issues which European nations are confronted with are transformed from the security threats to security risks. This shift reduces the security pressure of the European nations, but the security situation in the region becomes more complicated. The emergence of new security issues demands the new security institution to cope with, and the strategic adjustment of the United States after the Cold War further stimulates the demand for the regional security institution in Europe. With the transformation of the European Union and NATO, the both IOs have more and more multiple members, and the functions of the organization are also beginning to overlap. However, the EU and NATO have not established any institutional relationship between them at that time, both fell into the separate overlap.The separate overlap of the EU and NATO puts multiple members of the EU and NATO into a situation of “nested game”. The different institutional preferences of the multiple members increase the negotiating cost in the transformation of NATO and the construction of the defense of the EU. Also, the separate institutional overlap of the EU and NATO creates a situation for the multiple members, such as France and Germany, to exploit the forum-shopping to pursue their parochial interests. The separate institutional overlap of the EU and NATO makes “interlocking institutions” proposed by the NATO fail to come true, instead, the security organizations fall in the “inter-blocking institutions”. In order to reduce the transaction cost in security cooperation, the multiple members will need to coordinate the relationship between the EU and NATO, and set up a kind of institutional arrangement between them. As the multiple members of the EU and NATO, Britain, France and Germany play a decisive role in the process of coordinating the relationship between the EU and NATO. Britain, France and Germany use the bilateral summit and the council of Europe as a platform to coordinate the relationship between the EU and NATO, and establish a series of interactive principles and norms for both the EU and NATO. The institutionalization of the relationship of the EU and NATO opens the door to establish the strategic partnership.The resource absorbing mechanism of the European security and defense policy(ESDP) and the NATO have homogeneity, and both of them originate the resources from the contribution of their members. The homogeneity of the resource absorbing mechanism makes the ESDP and NATO resource dependent. Under the effect of resource dependence, the EU and NATO’s organization bureaucratic begin to contact with each other. The ambassadorial talks and the other organizations communication enhance the trust between the two IOs. Javier Solana, the EU Foreign and Security policy representative and George Robertson, the NATO Secretary-general, play a key role in the process of the establishment of the ENSP. The formal talks and the informal contacts between Javier Solana and George Robertson promote the establishment of strategic partnership.Thus, the ENSP is built under the dual pushing of the multiple members and the organizations bureaucrats.The ENSP coordinates the divisions of the Atlanticism and the Europeanism, and makes the EU and the NATO to get support from the European powers in their external crisis management. The EU and NATO achieve the sharing of resources by establishing the common resources and the complementary resources, avoiding the competition for resources and advancing the resource ability. The ENSP has the characteristics of the Path-dependence. As a result, the ENSP can produce synergistic effect to promote the European Union and NATO’s problem-solving ability.While the ENSP produces certain positive effect, its development and evolution are always conditioned by the internal and external factors, which cause some limitations to the ENSP. This study analyzes the three important factors: the USA factors, imbalance of the European Union and NATO resources sharing and the European country’s domestic politics. Still, the independent, diversified cooperation will become the trend of the development of the ENSP.