Mogherini heralds closer EU-NATO cooperation - Hoofdinhoud

High Representative Federica Mogherini i on Friday and Saturday attended the NATO Summit in Warsaw, which adopted a Summit Communiqué underlining the ever closer cooperation between the European Union and NATO.

In addition to existing cooperation in a number of areas, Mogherini underlined the even closer work the two organisations would do together following the publication last week of the EU i’s new foreign policy blueprint, the Global Strategy.

“We have decided to cooperate more also on the Central Mediterranean where NATO will look at ways to support the EU Operation Sophia to save lives and tackle the smugglers' networks, but also we work together in Afghanistan, on cyber and hybrid threats, so this summit for the European Union is an important moment to move to the next phase,” Mogherini said.

“I just presented last week the EU Global Strategy for our Foreign and Security Policy and we have shared also those views so we will work together more and more."

Mogherini was tasked to take forward, together with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg i, the implementation of the first ever joint declaration signed in Warsaw by the EU and NATO.

With the joint declaration - signed by Presidents of the European Council and the Commission and Secretary General of NATO - the EU and NATO are giving a new impetus to their partnership by stepping up cooperation to meet today's unprecedented challenges, such as hybrid threats, cooperation at sea, cyber security, migration and fostering greater research and industrial cooperation in the defence sector.

The Summit Communiqué underlined NATO’s commitment to working with the EU on counter-terrorism, on the Ukraine crisis, on terrorism and trafficking in the Sahel-Sahara region, on guaranteeing security in Kosovo, on irregular migration in the Aegean Sea and also pledged enhanced cooperation in the Central Mediterranean, in support of the EU’s Operation Sophia, which aims to break the business model of people smugglers. It welcomed the Iranian nuclear deal, negotiated under chairmanship of the High Representative.

The Communiqué said:

“The European Union remains a unique and essential partner for NATO. Enhanced consultations at all levels and practical cooperation in operations and capability development have brought concrete results. The security challenges in our shared eastern and southern neighbourhoods make it more important than ever before to reinforce our strategic partnership in a spirit of full mutual openness, transparency, and complementarity, while respecting the organisations’ different mandates, decision-making autonomy and institutional integrity, and as agreed by the two organisations.

“We welcome the joint declaration issued here in Warsaw by the NATO Secretary General, the President of the European Council, and the President of the European Commission, which outlines a series of actions the two organisations intend to take together in concrete areas, including countering hybrid threats, enhancing resilience, defence capacity building, cyber defence, maritime security, and exercises. We task the Council to review the implementation of these proposals and to report to Foreign Ministers by December 2016.

“We welcome the European Council Conclusions of June 2016, calling for further enhancement of the relationship between NATO and the EU. We also welcome the presentation of the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy.

Links:

Speech of the High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini at the Warsaw Summit Experts’ Forum

Joint Declaration by the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization