Cooperation or conflict? Problematizing organizational overlap in Europe
Abstract
Following the end of the Second World War, the creation of regional organizations in Europe provided niche functions to help ensure regional stability through security and transition. Yet, as the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved, each of these organizations evolved to have a post-Cold War role in the region. Since then, the level of convergence of norms, interests and objectives between these main regional organizations has increased considerably. Is there a common agenda in Europe? Does Europe still need so many organizational elements to tackle the major challenges? This book examines the way the EU, NATO, OSCE, and Council of Europe relate to and interact with each other, identifying the areas of positive convergence and divergence as well as areas of negative cooperation and conflict. By tracing the institutional development and regional integration in Europe, the book questions to what degree do European organizations maintain separate identities and most importantly do these organizations still offer a unique and useful service to regional stability. In developing this argument, policy areas analysed include: " Security " Democracy promotion " Peace building " Human rights, minority rights, and group protection The unique combination of institutional and policy analysis make Cooperation or Conflict? an original and stimulating resource for scholars and practitioners interested in the ebbs and flows of Europe's institutional architecture. © David J. Galbreath and Carmen Gebhard 2010. All rights reserved.
... Post-Cold War cooperation in the BSR has been marked by soft governance and grassroots initiatives aimed at desecuritising the region (Buzan et al., 1998;Gebhard, 2009;Tassinari & Williams, 2003). A robust infrastructure for regional cooperation has emerged, encompassing numerous transnational institutions, civil society organisations, consultative bodies, expert networks, policy think tanks, and political forums (Galbreath & Gebhard, 2010;Joenniemi, 1993). The Baltic regionalism has endeavoured to enhance regional identity through public engagement and civil society networking-essentially, constructing the region through discourse (Jukarainen, 1999;Suominen et al., 2000), largely in line with the principles of new regionalism (Hettne, 2005;Söderbaum & Shaw, 2003). ...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine created a critical juncture in the Baltic Sea region (BSR), leading to a period of significant social disruption. This situation exacerbated a cognitive dissonance between the official narratives promoting regional cooperation and strategies for managing relations with Russia, and the stark perception of Russia as a potential adversary. Accordingly, this study aims to examine and elucidate the ongoing transformations in the BSR and its identity narratives. Firstly, we outline the emblematic manifestations of discursive unease that define these developments. Secondly, we propose a theoretical framework to enhance comprehension of the shifts in identity within the Baltic Sea regional framework. Thirdly, we consider potential methodological approaches to capture evolving ideologies, imaginaries, and ontologies that shape regional identity. Fourthly, through case studies, we investigate identity discourses and explore potential changes in identity as perceived by participants. Finally, we conclude by highlighting critical issues and questions that may shape the emergence of new foundational elements for the BSR.
... In the case of the BSR, there is a widely shared conviction that, because of the plethora of security threats, a single organisation would not provide security on all dimensions in a satisfying manner (Adler & Greve, 2009;Galbreath & Gebhard, 2010;Hofmann, 2011). Therefore, one of the main foreign policy objectives of states in the BSR should be to seek effective coordination of efforts, undertaken by various institutions, i.e. ...
The Baltic Sea, located in Northern Europe, is a semienclosed sea with an area of just over 415,000 km². For maritime security and shipping, it is crucial to maintain
control over the Danish straits (which connect the Baltic to the North Sea and give access to the North Atlantic) and over the main islands of the Baltic Sea (Bornholm,
Gotland, Saaremaa, and the Åland Islands). This was the reality at the time of the Vikings and it is the reality today at a time of increasing confrontation in the region between EU/NATO states and Russia.
The Baltic Sea Region (BSR), as understood in this chapter, is composed of the Baltic Sea and ten states with their whole territory. First of all, there are nine coastal
states (the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; the three Nordic states of Denmark, Sweden and Finland; as well as Germany, Poland and Russia). Moreover, due to political, cultural and economic ties as well as a shared history, Norway is also included. After the end of the Cold War, all these states were part of a regional security architecture and maintained political and security relations within international organisations. Basic data on area, population, economy and military dimension are provided in Table 1 and Table 2.
The purpose of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, it is intended to provide a minimum theoretical knowledge of the regional security complex (RSC) and regionalism.
Secondly, by analysing these processes in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), the chapter will describe the evolution of the security architecture with emerging challenges and
the response of international institutions to changes in the security environment.
This chapter is divided into five sections. The first subchapter presents the theory of RSC and a few practical real-life examples. After that, the text is organised in a
chronological way and the second part briefly reiterates the history of the rivalry between states in the Baltic Sea Region in the past and during the Cold War. Then the Baltic Sea Region after the end of the Cold War is analysed, followed by the NATO enlargements in 1999 and 2004. Finally, the fifth section deals with the post-2014 security developments and recently Finland’s and Sweden’s path to NATO.
... The demand for inter-organizational cooperation becomes greater as the costs of unmanaged overlaps between two IOs increase. If two IOs have both common members and similar policy competencies, this can have negative consequences (Gebhard & Galbreath, 2013;Gómez-Mera, 2015). However, IO and state actors from both sides can work together to avoid the costs associated with unmanaged overlaps or benefit from synergies. ...
Regime complexity characterizes the international system, as many international organizations (IOs) overlap in membership and competencies at the same time. Unmanaged overlaps endanger the effectiveness of IOs. Inter-organizational cooperation can mitigate such negative consequences. However, a novel dataset reveals that not all overlapping IOs cooperate with each other and the institutionalization of cooperation agreements varies. Why do some but not all overlapping IOs opt for cooperation agreements, and why do their designs vary? The analysis of a demand–supply–restraint model shows that increased exposure to overlaps creates a demand for IOs to reach cooperation agreements and for their strong institutionalization. States respond more favourable to the supply of cooperation agreements when they are used to international cooperation and internal authority-delegation. The restraint component underscores that IOs are less inclined to cooperate when ideological differences and power differentials between them are greater and that IOs choose highly institutionalized cooperation agreements when their ideological differences are limited.
... As a consequence of these developments, RIOs often share one or more members and are equipped with identical policy competencies and mandates at the same time, which we refer to as overlapping regionalism (OVREG) (Malamud, 2019;Nolte, 2018;Panke and Stapel, 2018a;Russo and Gawrich, 2017;Yeo, 2018). Case studies have demonstrated that overlaps between RIOs can carry negative consequences, such as an inefficient usage of RIO capacities and finances (Brosig, 2011;Hofmann, 2009Hofmann, , 2019, rivalry (Weiffen et al., 2013), member state non-compliance due to policy incompatibilities (Panke and Stapel, 2018b), or the diminished effectiveness of regional governance (Gebhard and Galbreath, 2013;Gómez-Mera, 2015). ...
Regional cooperation often leads to the establishment of regional international organizations (RIOs). Due to the increasing number of RIOs, their growing membership size and their broadening policy scope, RIOs frequently overlap with each other with regard to membership and mandate. Overlaps may lead to conflicts amongst affected organizations and potentially limit the prospects for regional prosperity and peace. Although overlapping regionalism has become ubiquitous in many regions, we do not systematically know the extent of the phenomenon. Therefore, the paper presents an original dataset about overlapping regionalism and introduces a typology of overlaps between two RIOs. The OVREG dataset includes both raw data of shared member states and policy competencies and information about distinct types of overlap between affected RIOs for 73 RIOs, 193 states and 344 policy competencies in the period between 1945 and 2020. A descriptive analysis of trajectories and patterns shows that overlapping regionalism in general and the different overlap types have spread over time and across world regions. Nevertheless, regional particularities persist. Thus, the OVREG dataset allows for examining the causes of overlaps, the potential negative consequences of overlapping regionalism and the variety of coping mechanisms at the disposal of affected RIOs.
... Second, regional regime complexity can lead to a waste of resources when the concerned ROs duplicate their efforts (Bond, 2010;Brosig, 2011). Third, should policy outputs and norms of two overlapping ROs be incompatible or even mutually exclusive (Gebhard & Galbreath, 2013;Gómez-Mera, 2015), states that are members in both ROs cannot comply with both sets of rules and norms simultaneously, thus fostering non-compliance (Panke & Stapel, 2018b). ...
The number of regional organizations in Europe has increased in the aftermaths of the Second World War and the Cold War. Whenever regional organizations share member states and are equipped with identical policy competencies at the same time, regime complexity comes into play. Unmanaged regime complexity has not only increased over time but can also bring about negative consequences that can reduce the effectiveness of regional governance. To address these challenges, regional organizations can turn into external actors and cooperate with each other. While some of these cooperation agreements are shallow, others are deep and differ in the specification of policy scopes, instruments, and designated arenas. Thus, we pursue the following research questions: (a) How frequently does the EU cooperate with other regional organizations in the regional regime complex? (b) How does the design of cooperation differ? We show that the EU is an active shaper of regime complexes, not only when it comes to constructing them in the first place, but also with respect to navigating complexity. The EU has entered formal cooperative agreements with most of the regional organizations with which it overlaps. The EU concluded many agreements because it possesses the necessary capacities and is able to speak with one voice externally. We show that the design of agreements is influenced by ideological distances with the other regional organizations.
... On the one hand, joining multiple IOs with at least one common policy competence requires material and political resources in the form of negotiation costs, membership fees, and sovereignty costs. On the other hand, complexity potentially reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of IOs through a waste of resources and an increase in transaction costs (Bond, 2010;Brosig, 2011), incompatible policy output and outcomes (Gebhard and Galbreath, 2013;Gómez-Mera, 2015), a weakened sense of legal obligation (Drezner, 2009), and non-compliance (Panke and Stapel, 2018b). Thus, states that are strongly exposed to complexity are unlikely to reap the full benefits from cooperation. ...
Multilateral cooperation in international organisations is characterised by regime complexity. The literature usually adopts a policy-focused perspective studying the properties, effects, and dynamics within given regime complexes for different policy areas. Yet few accounts of why states drive regime complexity have been provided in the literature. Therefore, we adopt a state-focused perspective and observe how states differ in the extent to which they foster complexity through overlapping memberships and policy competencies in international organisations. In order to explain this variation, we extract state motivations from the regime complexity literature, but also incorporate the role of geopolitical opportunity structures for complexity as well as interactions between both elements. The empirical analysis reveals that the power to pursue self-interests leads to duplicated policy competencies, whereas duplicating international organisation memberships by creating new international organisations or joining existing ones is costly and a less favoured route towards pursuing substantive gains. The motivation to gain external reputation also positively influences the overlap in membership and policy competencies. Moreover, the number of neighbouring states and the disappearance of deep-rooted ideological cleavages are important opportunity structures for states furthering complexity. Opportunity structures also reinforce the positive effect of power to pursue self-interests and external reputation motivations on complexity. Thus, we contribute to regime complexity research in showing that not all states equally foster regime complexity and this relationship is dependent on a specific context.
... mais il est important de préciser que la construction politique de l'Union européenne s'est faite en grande partie sur la coopération entre territoires de différents États membres. Les recherches en science politique sur la coopération territoriale européenne sont foisonnantes et analysent les dispositifs juridiques introduits par l'Union européenne conduisant à la mise en place de coopérations entre territoires de différents États membres ainsi que les visions et modèles qui sous-tendent la mise en place d'une telle juridiction pour l'aménagement du territoire communautaire Faludi 2007;Gebhard et Galbreath 2013;Hüllen 2012;Laird 2019;Rivolin et Faludi 2005). L'apport pour cette recherche de la science politique est l'étude de la croissance du nombre de dispositifs permettant la mise en place de coopération. ...
Cette thèse porte sur l’internationalisation et l’européanisation des villes françaises par le biais des réseaux de coopérations internationales entre villes. Ces coopérations internationales se divisent en trois types : les coopérations bilatérales, les projets européens et les associations de villes. L’objectif est de montrer comment ces liens de coopération structurent les territoires à différentes échelles. D’un point de vue méthodologique, ce travail se caractérise par le recours à des approches complémentaires. J’utilise des techniques quantitatives pour exploiter des bases de données recensant ces coopérations. Je croise les résultats obtenus à des données issues d’une enquête qualitative, pour interroger les stratégies déployées par les acteurs des villes.Quatre résultats en découlent. Tout d’abord, l’espace joue un rôle central dans la mise en place des coopérations, et il est structuré par celles-ci. Ces coopérations font apparaître des espaces régionaux. Parmi eux, l’échelle européenne apparaît tout particulièrement : les coopérations entre villes sont portées par les institutions européennes qui s’en servent pour appuyer la construction de l’espace communautaire. Troisièmement, une géographie alternative des villes centrales au sein des réseaux de villes est révélée, et s’explique par le fait que les villes utilisent les coopérations internationales pour se repositionner dans la hiérarchie urbaine et vis-à-vis des institutions nationales et supranationales, ce qui fait écho au concept de rescaling. Enfin, on montre que ces coopérations permettent aux villes d’échanger de bonnes pratiques sur des enjeux contemporains. Ces coopérations structurent les acteurs à l’échelle locale et participent à la formalisation d’un projet de développement territorial qui permet de penser la ville comme un acteur collectif.
... Im Zuge der Zunahme grenzüberschreitender Probleme und politischer Versuche ihrer Problembearbeitung agieren IPAs als Vermittler in politischen Verhandlungsprozessen (Biermann & Siebenhüner, 2009), "orchestrieren" Staaten oder Versuche, diese zu umgehen (Abbott et al., 2015) und kooperieren bei der Erfüllung überlappender Aufgaben, wie auch im vorliegenden Fall (u. a. Galbreath & Gebhard, 2010;Freytag & Kirton, 2017). ...
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund joined for the first time forces in the ‘Troika’ to deal with the effects of the European debt crisis. Crisis-ridden Euro countries were to receive loans linked with substantial credit conditionalities. While the Troika was eager to issue united positions on loan conditions, the three organizations frequently clashed over issues such as debt restructuring, fiscal and structural adjustment. Using process tracing we exemplify the contextual differences by drawing on the loan programs to Ireland and Greece. By making reference to the concept of organizational culture and to international organizations as bureaucracies or ‘international public administrations’, we interpret conflicting approaches to financial assistance as the result of incongruent organizational cultures of the Troika bureaucracies. Our study challenges state-centered readings of the Troika, but also approaches that consider international organizations as ‘multiple selves’ rather than unitary actors.
... Standardy występujące w aktach zaliczanych do kategorii "miękkiego prawa" określa się terminem "standardy uchwałodawcze". W odniesieniu do takich standardów zawartych w uchwałach Rady Europy pełnią one ważną rolę, bądź inspirując powstanie standardów traktatowych, bądź je uzupełniając 15 . ...
... Mandat HCNM odzwierciedla jego charakter polityczny. Zadania i narzędzia HCNM są sformułowane w kategoriach politycznych w taki sposób, aby można było dostosować je do zachodzących przemian w politykach państw uczestniczących 14 . ...
... In either case, there is deep running tension between the ambition to create ever more comprehensive and flexible approaches to address multi-dimensional, novel or asymmetric security threats (Nance and Cottrell, 2014) and the capacity required to steer the desired multi-stakeholder coordination processes (Daase and Friesendorf, 2010). This tensions runs across all levels of analysis, i.e. from local or 'nodal' policing (Shearing, 2005) to the international system where a variety of regional organizations may provide different, and even overlapping or competing, forms of security governance (Gebhard and Galbreath, 2013;Kirchner and Dominguez, 2011;Sperling and Webber, 2014). ...
... The consequences of regime complexity for the policy field, the actors, and the disruption or alleviation of cooperation problems between states have been explored to some extent Meunier, 2006, 2009;Biermann, 2008;Busch, 2007;Galbreath and Gebhard, 2010;Gehring and Faude, 2013;Raustiala and Victor, 2004). According to Alter and Meunier (2009), the hitherto existing findings do not point in a single direction. ...
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has positioned itself as a regional security organization aimed at reducing the influence of the Organization of American States (OAS) in South America. At the same time, the OAS paradoxically serves as a model for UNASUR because of its operational capacity and its legitimacy as a regional organization. This article analyzes the seemingly contradictory tendencies of replication and dissociation that UNASUR exhibits towards the OAS in terms of security conceptions and practices. In the first part of the paper, we will draw on recent debates on international regime complexity to develop a framework to study institutional overlap. The second part analyzes to what extent and in which respects UNASUR, and particularly its Defense Council, overlaps with the OAS in terms of security conceptions and practices, while the third part examines the causes of the emergence of a "competitor" for the OAS in South America.
The present paper provides an overview of past, present, and proposed models of differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union. First, it reviews the quantitative and qualitative evidence on the historical use of differentiation from 1958 to 2020, finding that it is a common but relatively secondary feature of European integration and that the three idealtypical models identified in the literature (multi-speed, multi-tier, and multi-menu) are deployed in an eclectic, versatile, and constrained manner, which could be termed ‘reluctant differentiation’. Second, it examines and assesses a sample of 21 reform proposals covering the full range of possibilities for the future development of the EU: from total disintegration to a federal union, from maximum uniformity to sustained differentiation, the use of different differentiation models, and other design elements. It finds that differentiation plays an important role in most proposals and may represent an essential tool to increase their effectiveness, popular support, and legal-political feasibility, even though any radical shift toward a more differentiated Europe is unlikely to be implemented.
Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/74191
This article discusses the potential emergence of a theory on inter-organisational relations (IOR). Although no dominant set of causal statements about IOR exists, which is traditionally associated with a theory, the literature has made substantial advancements in the last decade. The main aim of this contribution is to review the respective literature, portraying its merits and shortcomings. The article shows that a rich analytical repertoire of instruments for research exists but that scholarship struggles to make use of these advancements. The article argues that an IOR theory is on the horizon but the field needs to accept and better conceptualise phenomena which lay outside the traditional understanding of theory building.
The study of inter-organisational relations forms a part of organisation theory. It has not been widely applied to international organisations. This chapter points out and clears away some theoretical impediments related to the understanding of the character of international organisations. These would include the idiosyncrasies of the study of international relations when it comes to the locus and type of power, and the habit of concentrating on the state even when analysing inter-organisational relations, or still the habit of not seeing international organisations as able to have power. The attitudes towards international organisations clearly matter to how the questions are framed. The chapter then goes on to look at the empirical development of inter-organisational relations in the field of security, concentrating on the three organisations that this book is about: the EU, NATO and the UN. It looks at existing research on them and finds that power is missing in the analysis.
This article explores the historical evolution of research on the “European Union (EU)–North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) relationship” since the 1950s and examines the numerous ways in which it has served as an important case study for applying and developing theory-guided and conceptual research on inter-organisational relations (IOR) in International Relations. After a dearth of policy-oriented research during the 1990s and early 2000s, a wide range of scholars have contributed to a “conceptual turn” in the study of EU–NATO during the last decade. This development, as this article will argue, not only signifies a stronger interest by scholars to understand the complex relationship between both organisations with the help of more theory-driven research, but also highlights that the EU–NATO relationship has become a “catalytic case study” in terms of inspiring conceptual experimentation and advancing efforts to theorise IOR more generally. The article provides for the first time a systematic stock-taking and analysis of the richness of concepts and theoretical debates related to EU–NATO relations research and offers scholars wider insights into the most promising approaches and analytical tools for understanding and theorising EU–NATO relations.
This chapter argues that power and power relations offer an important perspective to understand the interaction between international organizations. International organizations need power, exert power, and their relations with other organizations are both a factor that affects their power and a venue where they exercise that power. Such a power perspective has thus far been rarely used, particularly in the analysis of international organizations in the field of security policy. The chapter takes a deeper look at the reasons that have limited power analysis in inter-organizational relations, suggesting ways to overcome them. Looking at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations (UN), and the European Union (EU) in particular, the chapter argues that understanding their power relations helps to understand the specificities of international organizations as organizations, and their current position in the international system.
This chapter considers how International Relations (IR) theory and organization theory (OT) have informed each other’s development to date and discusses areas of unrealized potential for future cross-fertilization in analyzing inter-organizational cooperation and conflict as well as limits of such exchange. While IR has made limited contributions to organizational studies, the flow of ideas from organizational scholarship to IR has been more influential. Organizational theories such as transaction cost economics, agency theory, and neo-institutionalist organizational sociology have significantly influenced IR theory over the past 30 years. Network analysis is increasingly employed in IR. Complexity theory has seen some application in both IR and OT. And scholars of international organizations have recently drawn upon resource dependence theory and organization culture theory. Other organizational theories—including contingency, garbage can, and organizational ecology, theories—have the potential to illuminate new puzzles in the study of inter-organizational relations in world politics.
The European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Council of Europe (CoE) are major actors in European democracy promotion policies. As the EU is the most powerful actor among them, their varying modes of interaction and the time and stage of their formalization are very much dependent on the EU’s approach to, and preferences regarding, inter-organizational cooperation. In the case of the EU, the OSCE, and the CoE, the nestedness of the EU within both organizations cannot be regarded as a sufficient explanatory factor in understanding their relations in the democracy promotion policies. As the chapter shows, there are substantial differences between various four policy fields of democracy promotion. One explanation is the degree of intergovernmental interest in supporting a certain policy field. Issue-specific cooperation which is rather technical or project based seems to be more likely than political cooperation at the intergovernmental level. Beyond rather rational-choice-based neo-institutionalist explanation, there is no clear pattern visible. The degree of formalization does not seem to be a sufficient explanation for International Organization (IO)–IO cooperation. However, asymmetry between funding opportunities and implementation capacities seems to be decisive as well as flexibility or room for manoeuvre of the involved IO institutions.
The future of command and control is not "Command and Control." In fact, the term "Command and Control" has become a significant impediment to progress. This paper presents and discusses key terms that form the core of a new conceptual foundation -- one that can provide a point of departure for the systematic exploration of future "command and control." Three concepts form this core: agility, focus, and convergence. In brief, agility is the critical capability that organizations need to meet the challenges of complexity and uncertainty; focus provides the context and defines the purposes of the endeavor; convergence is the goal-seeking process that guides actions and effects.
The future of EU–NATO relations will depend principally upon the ability to find solutions to three interrelated issues. The first is the question of whether transatlantic relations can be improved, most notably through the desire to engage in a genuine dialogue with America’s allies and a rapprochement between France and NATO. A sub‐theme that will be touched upon in this context is leadership and vision in transatlantic relations. The second is the underlying rhetoric‐resources gap that threatens to undermine both EU and NATO abilities to take on responsibility for more challenging operations. Finally, the Cyprus problem lies at the centre of the current impasse between the two organizations and accounts for many of the day‐to‐day problems.In each case a number of solutions are suggested but, it is acknowledged, none will be easy to implement. If progress is not made, the EU and NATO risk condemning themselves to growing irrelevance as security actors. The contribution also identifies a number of approaching windows of opportunity to place relations between the EU and NATO onto a more constructive path. If the three problems above are addressed the EU and NATO will remain highly relevant and essential to meeting the multifarious security challenges facing Europe and the wider international community.
The early twenty-first century has witnessed the increased globalization of intelligence. The phenomenon of international intelligence liaison (cooperation) is central, figuring as the domain where intelligence and international relations connect most closely. In this article, the key themes developing within international intelligence liaison relationships are highlighted and the efforts intended to optimize these arrangements are analysed. In short, hierarchies appear to be becoming flatter. This phenomenon is illustrated here by changes in US-Australian intelligence relations, by increased Special Forces’ interoperability, and by significant shifts concerning terrorism threat analysis/assessment centres. Simultaneously this reflects an enhanced dependence on liaison with a greater number of partners. There is growing evidence to suggest the development of an ever-more complex web consisting of overlapping international intelligence liaison arrangements, which collectively provides a form of global intelligence coverage. These changes are perhaps most important for the United States, which remains the global intelligence hegemon. ---- Further info / access via: http://www.asghost.co.uk/links/pages/about.htm#2008
Dealing with pirates off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean over the past two-plus years has highlighted the international law applicable to countering piracy at sea and the role of international institutions in that effort. This essay seeks to illuminate related issues with a view to improving counterpiracy action.
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden has been a rising issue since 2005, threatening merchant shipping using the Suez Canal, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. The problem was exacerbated when Somali pirates began hijacking World Food Program ships, en route to Somalia. The world’s navies responded, and the result is three coalitions of naval forces conducting anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and surrounding areas: NATO responded in October 2008, the European Union (EU) established an anti-piracy operation in December 2008, and the Combined Maritime Forces operating from US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain established a dedicated anti-piracy task force of their own. Efforts at closer cooperation in the Gulf of Aden have largely been successful. The EU and NATO have found ways to cooperate that are fairly easy and cheap to implement, with the innovative use of the Internet as a coalition communication system is one example. NATO’s presence alone has affected naval cooperation in the area, as NATO standards often provide a common link between the systems of different ships. Although piracy is unlikely to be stopped through naval efforts alone, EU-NATO naval co-operation in the Gulf of Aden appears to be successful in that it is resulting in less ships being boarded by pirates.
For years, an invisible wall has kept the European Union and NATO apart. As the United States and Europe face common threats across the globe, the time has come to break down the bureaucratic barrier and meld NATO's hard power with the EU's soft power to confront today's challenges.
With 50 years’ seniority over the ESDP, and despite its austere origins, NATO transformed itself during the 20th century into a political-bureaucratic machine in search of a more appropriate international role.
Launched in Macedonia in March 2003, Operation Concordia was the first EU military crisis management operation. In accordance with the Berlin Plus arrangements concluded days before its launch, Operation Concordia was conducted using NATO assets. Although these assets were not strictly necessary for a limited operation such as Concordia, the prior conclusion of Berlin Plus was a political necessity for the EU–NATO relationships. Concordia also signified a deepening in the Union's relationship with the Balkans, where the EU is now the lead international organization, deploying a full range of civilian and military crisis management instruments in support of the Stabilization and Association Process.
The issue of how to organize and implement a European security and defence `identity' has been discussed at both the political and the academic level throughout the past decade. Initially, it was basically related only to NATO or, at best, to the NATO-WEU interface. As such, it did not make much progress, in spite of the commitments taken especially in Berlin (1996) and the limited decisions adopted in the WEU framework in 1997. Even at that time, the main bones of contention were the extent to which NATO `assets and capabilities' would be put at the disposal of `European-led' peace support operations and, as a consequence, the role and the rights of those European allies that were not full members of the WEU. With the onset of the ESDP and the de facto withering away of the WEU, the issue has become a bilateral one between the European Union and the Alliance. The controversial points have remained more or less the same, but the political and legal contexts have changed. Ever since, apparently, the main obstacle to an arrangement between the two organizations allowing the EU to have `assured access' to NATO planning capabilities has been Turkey's attitude. The article examines in detail all the problems involved, assessing the current state of affairs and drawing some conclusions for the future.
Stéphane Lefebvre is a former Strategic Analyst at the Canadian Department of National Defence and a former Marcel Cadieux Policy Planning Fellow at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of any governmental or nongovernmental organizations with which he is or has been affiliated. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Colloque Renseignement et Sécurité internationale, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, on 20 March 2003.
The debate over NATO's future intensified after the Prague summit in November 2002 when the Alliance was deemed to have given itself a global role in the war on terror through the creation of the NATO Response Force (NRF). However, squabbles inside the Alliance over Iraq and continuing uncertainties about the potential future role of NATO forces `out of area' re-launched the debate in the spring of 2003. Experts remain bitterly divided between the `NATO is Dead' school and the `NATO Rides Again' schools. One key to the future lies in the viability of the NRF as a form of glue, which can hold the EU member state, and the US together. Prague heralded a new honeymoon between the two sides of the Atlantic, but both political and military problems confront attempts to operationalize any matchmaking role for the NRF. Meanwhile, ESDP continues to make steady progress towards its own `Headline Goal' of military forces. Whether NATO as an alliance or ESDP as an autonomous political-military project will become the priority concern of the individual EU member states depends in large measure on the future course of EU-US relations and on unforeseen `events', but in the current climate it is difficult to express optimism about a renewed harmonious partnership between the two sides of the Atlantic.
The 'Berlin Plus' agreement of 16 December 2002 now allows the EU to draw on some of NATO'smilitary assets in its own peacekeeping operations.The exact legal nature of the agreement, however, appears doubtful. Yet - given that political actors often resort to legal arguments in case of a dispute - the question of whether it is binding under international law is likely to be raised in the future. First, a short historical overview is given of the development of relations between the EU and NATO. In some respects, these are a mirror image of the co-operation NATO previously entertained with the Western European Union. However, since the French-British meeting of St-Mâlo these relations have assumed features of their own, for instance equal status for the EU. The text of the 'Berlin Plus' agreement is then tested against the constitutive characteristics of a treaty in international law. In conclusion, the 'Berlin Plus'is nothing but a non-binding agreement.The most important reason for this is that the EU manifestly lacked treaty-making competence, as the agreement was concluded by its High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, not by the statutory organ provided for in such cases in the Treaty on European Union. Nevertheless, as the parties proceed to implement the 'Berlin Plus' according to its stated terms, legally binding force may arise for some of its contents through estoppel.
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The creation and continued existence of CSDP cannot be understood without reference to the institutional environment within which it is located. To explain its emergence and design, one needs to study the institutional architecture into which this additional institution emerged. Once institutional overlap exists, it becomes a crucial independent variable explaining not only the strategies that member states have at their disposal, but also the development of international institutions occupying the same policy domain as well as the impact on the policy field at large.
This article combines inductive and deductive theory building to identify building blocks for a theory of inter-organizational
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