NAA steps out of the cold and into action

Date: 07/12/1995

'It is inevitable the EU will move forward on a common foreign and security policy. But the question is how far and how fast?' Rory Watson meets the deputy secretary-general of the North Atlantic Assembly, who puts forward his views on the issue.

TO those heavily steeped in the dealings of the European Union, the North Atlantic Assembly is a little-known quantity.

But as the Union's ambitions lead it into new areas, whether they be security and defence, transatlantic relations or Central and Eastern Europe, it will inevitably come into contact with the Brussels-based assembly.

For the past 40 years, the North Atlantic Assembly (NAA) has acted as the main forum bringing together American and western European parliamentarians, as opposed to governments, whose countries are members of the North Atlantic Alliance. Like other organisations, it has been forced to reassess its role in the shifting political and military environment of the post-Cold War world.

That has led to the NAA directing more of its activities eastwards as it builds up contacts with parliamentarians in the new democracies, many of whose governments are, or will be, seeking membership of the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

In a world where institutional jealousies are a fact of life, Simon Lunn, the NAA's deputy secretary-general for the past seven years, is well placed to help oil the wheels as the different organisations tentatively work out their new mutual relationships.

The 54-year-old former army officer was head of the plans and policy section at NATO in the mid-Eighties and had earlier worked as a researcher in London and for the US Congress in Washington. For a brief period between 1982 and 1983, he was an adviser to the then European Parliament president, Piet Dankert.

“In a way, I was there too early. Piet Dankert wanted to stimulate a debate on European security,” explains Lunn.

It was also a time when any public discussion on defence within the then European Community was virtually taboo, when many felt Ireland's neutrality was being impugned if its prime minister stayed in the room for after-dinner European summit conversation on security issues, and when talk of encouraging a European armaments industry sparked off widespread controversy. Those days are long gone.

But, as Lunn explains, he sees no likelihood of the North Atlantic Alliance being eclipsed.

“It is inevitable the EU will move forward on a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). But the question is how far and how fast? Will it embrace defence? The first step must be to have a common foreign policy and I feel the EU is far from having that.

“The EU reaches into areas where it is not difficult to get agreement, but the moment it becomes a question of serious issues, then the very thing the CFSP is meant to counter - national self-interest - takes over. Bosnia is a good example.”

The NAA deputy secretary-general believes that the difficulties the Union faces in forging a common defence policy are even greater, given that five member states are not in the Western European Union (WEU), which some see as the EU's future defence arm.

He acknowledges the five countries' active role in peace support exercises and traditional peace-keeping operations, but believes that these two roles in themselves are not sufficient to form a basis for a common European defence identity. Lunn also raises the more practical question of resources.

“We would have to look at what forces we could put in the field. In this respect, what the EU could achieve would be quite limited even for a mini-operation. If we are looking at sending a substantial number of troops any distance for any length of time, we would be considerably stretched. At the moment, any operation is done against the backdrop of NATO and often with American back-up. The Union does not have the communications, intelligence and strategic lift resources of the United States,” he points out.

Lunn's analysis suggests that NATO will remain, for some time, the premier defence alliance, but he can envisage the WEU carving out a more defined role for itself in areas where it can cooperate with NATO, or where the transatlantic organisation is not present.

There is greater scope for cooperation between the NAA and the Union in their dealings with the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. The NAA has built up contacts with 16 such countries and now involves their parliamentarians in a range of activities.

Since 1991, it has organised 26 different seminars for deputies from associate countries, training programmes for parliamentary staff and internships in the NAA's Brussels secretariat.

“Our major goal is to integrate these MPs into our western structures, giving them experience and, more importantly, psychological reassurance that they are not on the outside. The parliamentary level is very important. You can integrate more easily than at a government level,” he explains.

“Our aim is to stimulate parliamentary dialogue and to help them to be more effective in their work. We focus especially on helping these countries to ensure their armed forces are under proper democratic control, including effective parliamentary involvement.”

And what of the aspirations of these countries to join the EU and NATO? The conditions and procedures for membership of each are different, but Lunn believes there could be a natural progression. “I believe NATO can and should open up before the EU. It is less demanding on the conditions countries have to satisfy. I feel most countries can meet these. I do not think they fear immediate aggression, but they live in an area of uncertainty. NATO can provide that certainty and can do it in a way that is not provocative.”

The work with Central and Eastern Europe emulates the NAA's transatlantic activities over the past four decades, during which it promoted understanding between US congressmen and members of western European parliaments.

Those contacts have established a special dialogue between the NAA and Congress and ensured it unparalleled access to American politicians. This explains Lunn's clear belief that there is no room for any new institutional transatlantic framework, despite the calls in some quarters of the Union for such an initiative to bring security, political and economic issues into one framework.

“The message we get from our congressmen is that, for practical reasons, they say there is no more room and no more time for new institutions. We could have more cooperative arrangements, but as the inter-parliamentary arm of the transatlantic alliance, we are very different from the European Parliament,” he said.

“On the one hand, there is the transatlantic partnership, focusing on security, and on the other, the EU/US dialogue on political and economic issues. Slowly, the two will come closer together. We have to think of ways of reconciling the two, but not of inventing something new,” he insists.

The search for that partnership is likely to loom large in the coming years. As the EU confronts its own future at next year's Intergovernmental Conference on the Maastricht Treaty, NATO envisages 1996 as a year of exploration in terms of enlargement and clarification of its own role.

The two processes will be conducted in parallel, but not necessarily in the mutually exclusive spirit of the past. NAA President Karsten Voigt recently wrote to Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, who is handling EU relations with the US, to explore a new dialogue.

“This shows the change of climate. We need to get away from institutional rivalry. There is room for everyone, plenty of work to do and scope for cooperation,” says Lunn.