Interview with HE Nasser Kamel, Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Barcelona/Cairo and Maciej Popowski, Director-General of DG ECHO, European Commission, Brussels The European: Mr Kamel and Mr Popowski, over the past years, the European Union (EU) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) have developed close cooperation on civil protection. New…
by Nannette Cazaubon, Paris Three major meetings on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in civil protection were held in Barcelona and Valencia from 17 to 19 October 2023. Hosted by the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), the three events organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG…
by Dr Eunsook Chung, Senior Fellow Emeritus of Security Strategy Studies at Sejong Institute, Seoul In December last year, South Korea also adopted its official version of an Indo-Pacific strategy entitled “Strategy for a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region”. While emphasising the Indo-Pacific as home to 65% of the world population, accounting for more…
The European: Mr Kiesewetter, you are a member of the German Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs committee and an expert on security and defence. You recently called for the European Union (EU) to reduce its dependence on NATO. Can you explain the background to your statement? Roderich Kiesewetter: I am not talking about NATO as an alliance.…
by Michael Gahler MEP, European Parliament, Brussels/Strasbourg On 4 December 1998 in St Malo, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair provided the initial impulse for the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In the St. Malo declaration, both stated the ambition that “the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible…
by Cyrille Schott, Préfet de Region (h), and Board Member of EuroDefénse-France, Strasbourg Joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in different postures, from the beginning France and Germany did not have the same approach to NATO, the military organisation of the Transatlantic Alliance, and this continues today. Diverging approaches from the beginning France signed…
A few years after the end of the second world war that left Europe in ruins, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was part of a broader project. The US administration under President Harry Truman saw in a transatlantic alliance a powerful instrument to deter the expansionism of the communist Soviet Union…
by Gesine Weber, Research Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, Paris Russia’s war against Ukraine has shown that the transatlantic alliance can deliver on challenges in its neighbourhood. NATO has proven more united than ever, and has played a critical role in deterrence. While the US has shouldered most of the military aid, European governments…
by General Robert Brieger, Chairman of the European Union Military Committee (CEUMC), Brussels The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine has certainly led to a rethinking of cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Nevertheless, the main question remains: has this increasingly worrying scenario really brought the EU…
Interview with Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (Norfolk), Paris Hartmut Bühl: General Paloméros, after serving as Chief of General Staff of the French Air Force, in 2012 you were the first European to become NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) in Norfolk. What was your mission? Jean-Paul Paloméros: The mission of the SACT…