“A Partnership for Europe?” - Bosnia as a blueprint

Over the last twenty years, the European Union has established itself as the primary stabilizing structure throughout the European hemisphere. This is most visible in the Balkans, a region that has suffered from both ethnic rivalries and domestic wars for years. It was in this region that Europe’s first attempts to preserve peace and stability in its neighborhood failed so miserably in the early nineties. Nevertheless, the military engagement of European forces played an important role in stabilizing the region, first through NATO’s missions IFOR and SFOR and finally through Operation ALTHEA – the EU´s biggest and most important ESDP mission so far. And again it’s the Balkans with its fractured political landscape, where EU-Membership now offers the best hope for sustainable long-term economic and political stability.

Political stability through military presence
During the lengthy process of gaining EU-Membership, citizens will need reassurance from time to time. They will need clear public messages from the EU that their local politicians and societies are on the right path and that –even more importantly – the EU still cares enough to help them back on track if necessary. And the longer the process takes the more reassurance these societies will need. It is precisely during this important transition period that, due to the success of these missions, the West might lose a very important tool for reassuring those societies in this region still filled with ethnic rivalries. The official task of ALTHEA is to provide security and stability. However, the political message that the presence of European troops conveys to the general public, to all political actors in Bosnia and to the entire Balkan region might be even more important. Firstly, the West will not forget the reason for their intervention in the first case; secondly, the EU is still watching and will not stop observing and judging the efforts invested in Bosnia’s path towards European integration.

In the aftermath of ALTHEA
The EU is currently planning to transform the ALTHEA-Mission into a training mission, limited in scope and future tasks. This would most likely buy some time until the final withdrawal of all troops, but there remains the need to plan ahead. The issue now is how to best preserve these messages for the long term, even when ALTHEA has to declare “mission accomplished” and its remaining soldiers are finally sent home. The simple answer to this might be to organize regular institutionalized interaction between Western European forces and the Armed Forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina as one of their most successful multi-ethnic federal structures. Military exercises, exchange of staff officers and cross-participation in both, seminars and courses on all levels and grades, organized on a yearly base might help to keep the message of ongoing European interest in the region alive.

Beyond bilateralism
Unfortunately, the EU and the ESDP are lacking the necessary instruments for this kind of co-operation. Instead, Bosnia and Herzegovina would have to rely on ad-hoc agreements with individual states willing to invest money and resources, outside or in addition to, existing EU-Membership-Programs. This bilateral co-operation might still do the job, but it would have some significant disadvantages. First, and most importantly, it would be purely bilateral and therefore lack the overarching European spirit. Secondly, essentially relying on ad-hoc arrangements based on national interests (and funds) which might change over time, it would remain a fragile arrangement, thereby limiting its potential for long term reassurance. And thirdly, all bilateral co-operation runs the risk of becoming desynchronized with European Commission’s efforts towards the group of applicants for European Membership status. So the question remains: what to do instead?

NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program
There has been an institution the EU can draw on when looking for examples of how to organize regular mil-to-mil co-operation, how to help new democracies on their way towards membership of Western institutions, how to reassure the population and how to establish transparency for all participants on processes and criteria for membership: NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program. The creation of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) in 1994 – and its slightly modified successor of 1997, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) – extended the dialogue-based approach of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) by offering military cooperation and, in the long term, or perhaps even medium term, the prospect of future Alliance membership.

The achievements of this endeavor were multiple: NATO gained time to prepare itself internally for enlargement while in the same time helping candidates to transform their armed forces and political structures in accordance with the criteria set by Western Nations. NATO’s “open door policy” was explicitly linked to their wish of supporting the development of democracy, the market economy and the rule of law in the states of Central and Eastern Europe. The PfP system not only helped to achieve this goal, it also provided a successful instrument for testing the willingness, and proving the final readiness, of candidates to join the Alliance. NATO Members were also able to prepare their PfP Partners for participation in common military missions such as Kosovo and Afghanistan, where PfP Nations still play a substantive political and military role. At the same time, it allowed them to become familiar with NATO structures, regulations and procedures. All this was achieved with only minimal bureaucratic efforts, since less than 50 people in NATO – both in the International Staff and the International Military Staff – were engaged full-time in planning, co-ordinating and implementing the partnership programs.

A blueprint for a “Partnership for Europe”
The EU could easily set up a similar structure in order to engage with Bosnia in a more coherent, multilateral and institutionalized way. Some of its members are members of the Partnership for Peace, such as Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. Most of the other European Nations, as members of NATO, have extensive experience with the PfP themselves. Therefore, there is actually a substantial amount of expertise already existing which the EU could build on while pursuing this effort.

An institutionalized approach for mil-to-mil co-operation would offer even more prospects if implemented as part of an extended offer, i.e. broadened to other addressees of the European Union’s Neighborhood Program. By linking ESDP with Neighborhood Policy, this might even help improve one of its often criticized weaknesses – namely a lack of incentives for co-operation – despite the explicit intention to encourage reform processes in Europe’s wider periphery. Such a link could be as successful in broadening the potential capabilities available for future ESDP missions, as the PfP has already been helping NATO in its attempt to gain reliable and interoperable Partners for its own crisis management. Therefore, even though it may be more difficult to agree and implement a comparable structure for mil-to-mil co-operation within the European Union, there are good reasons to take a closer look at the Partnership for Peace - NATO’s most successful tool for broad co-operation with its partners – as it usefully provides the conceptual base for a unique European approach in terms of a “Partnership for Europe”.

Dr. Olaf Theiler studied History and Political Science in Berlin. In 2002, he made his PhD in Political Science on NATO's Reform since 1990. From 1998 to 2007 he teached Security Studies at the Academy of German Armed Forces for Information and Communication. Since 2007, he is working as a National Expert at the NATO-HQ, Brussels, Operations Division.