NATO

: NATO flag (Photo: NATO)

Headquartered in Brussels, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is the major Western defence organisation. It has 19 member states, including the USA, Canada and many European nations.

Notes

The Treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1949 contains 14 articles, among these the commitment to collective mutual defence and security in Article 5.
The WEU has an automatic mutual defence clause in Art. 5 in the Treaty of Brussels.
NATO makes decisions via unanimity.

The future

At the Prague summit in 2002, seven countries - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - were invited to begin accession talks to join NATO. Their membership is expected by May 2004. The EU may soon run the European pillar of NATO, the Eurogroup.

The EU Constitution envisages close ties between the EU and NATO: EU is supposed to control and make up a European pilllar within NATO and at the same time be able to participate in military operations independently of both NATO and the UN.

France in particular is working for an independent European defence policy, much to the distress of the US.

The Eu Constitution proposes enclosing a special protocol on mutual defence.

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