The strategic partnership between the European Union and NATO: the evolution of security cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic context

Abstract

The strategic partnership between NATO and the European Union has been impacted by particularly complex and heterogeneous legal regimes of cooperation over the past two decades. While, on the one hand, NATO has progressively updated its defence and deterrence competences under the North Atlantic Treaty, on the other hand, the European Union has witnessed an important implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy in the European integration process. The purpose of the following work is to analyse the evolution of the legal regime concerning strategic partnership between the two Organisations, which has gradually managed to overcome the main critical issues concerning the coordination, in the security field, between NATO and the EU. As confirmed by the practice, this partnership has provided for the development of particularly flexible instruments of cooperation, as is the case with the three Joint Declarations, signed in 2016, 2018 and 2023. From a legal point of view, the Joint Declarations have made it possible to relaunch the strategic partnership with a view to complementarity, coherence and mutual reinforcement of NATO and the EU to adapt the security competences of the two organizations in many strategic sectors for the security of the Euro-Atlantic territory