EU build its own military pact, PESCO
by Roni Alasor
Brussels, 6 March 2018 - Middle East Diplomatic (MED) -EU defence ministers held their first meeting in the framework of PESCO, EU’s new Permanent structured cooperation aiming to strengthen military and security cooperation in Europe. The EU member countries which in the last months experesed in media that their feel threat from neigboring country Turkey, namely Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria are also with PESCO, but cooperation with NATO will go head so long.
The EU defence ministers also discussed future cooperation projects together with Federica Mogherini, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Rose Gottemoeller, Deputy Secretary General of NATO.
Common EU-NATO initiatives, as well as developing of programs such as European Defence Fund, European peace facility and Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) were among the key points in the discussion. The EU ministers will engage with preparatory works on concrete projects in the coming months
After the meeting, Federica Mogherini, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy announced that “with the defence ministers, we had a historic first meeting of the Council in the framework of the permanent structured cooperation. We have a collective responsibility to implement the decisions taken and deliver on the commitments taken by the member states participating in PESCO”.
She said : “Cooperation between NATO and the European Union has never been as good as it is today. There is full complementarity and coherence between the work we do to strengthen European Union security and defence and cooperation between the European Union and NATO.”
According Mogerini, The EU Ministers also pointed out that stronger European cooperation on defence makes for a more robust European pillar within NATO, and that this work is conducted in full complementarity with NATO. Noting that it will give new political impetus to cooperation between the two organisations, they welcomed the agreement of the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the Secretary General of NATO to start working towards a new declaration which could be signed in the margins of the forthcoming NATO Summit in July.