Once estranged, NATO and EU find new rapport in Europe's crises

Record ID: 102600

  • Title: Once estranged, NATO and EU find new rapport in Europe's crises
  • Date: 20th May 2016
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 20, 2016) (REUTERS) REPORTER TAKING NOTES
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2016 09:49
  • Keywords: NATO EU Stoltenberg Mogherini security
  • Location: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
  • City: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: NATO
  • Reuters ID: LVA0034IM33UV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Friday (May 20) vowed to deepen cooperation against unconventional warfare with joint EU and NATO capabilities.
    Before an EU-NATO meeting, Stoltenberg spoke about Russia's unpredictable hybrid warfare, which blends unidentified troops, propaganda and economic pressure and that the alliance says Moscow used to annex Crimea in 2014.
    NATO believes that the EU's money, network of experts and embassies and its economic know-how should compliment the alliance's military clout to deal with problems from Russia and Libya to stemming arms and migrants flows in the Mediterranean.
    "As we move towards additional tasks of the operation, such as the training of the coastguards of Libya, or the potential work on the implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution on the arms embargo, we would need also to strengthen our assets and our capacities. And the support and the cooperation with NATO in this respect could be essential," Mogherini, EU's top diplomat, told reporters.
    While 22 of NATO's 28 members are also members of the European Union, both institutions face limits on what they can do together because of territorial tensions between Turkey and Greece that limit information sharing.
    However, concrete projects remain vague and while NATO's plan to deter Russia in the east with multinational troop battalions is emerging, neither the European Union nor NATO have not come up with a clear strategy to deal with Islamic militants and sectarian strife in North Africa and the Middle East.
    Stoltenberg said that foreign ministers "broadly agreed" to seek a new meeting with Russia before the next summit in July.
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