El Futuro de la cooperación Unión European - OTAN

Working lunch speech on “EU-NATO in the future
strategic environment” by Ambassador Pablo Benavides
Orgaz, Permanent Representative of Spain in the North
Atlantic Council
I thank the Incipe and the Real Instituto Elcano for inviting me to address the distinguished
participants in this international conference. As I know most of the excellent experts that
have participated in the panels, I am confi dent that they provided a comprehensive view
of where we are in NATO-EU relations, including lessons learned from their cooperation
up to now. I will try not to repeat their statements, but rather to use this more informal
framework to provoke you into an open and informal exchange of views, focused on the
future.
First, let me warn you that, while I can take advantage of my current NATO experience, I
am not going to present you the NATO point of view. After all, I am supposed to represent
Spain in NATO, not the other way around. That is more important than it seems. Some
of the problems and misunderstandings in the EU-NATO relationship are infl uenced by
burocratic turf battles. People tend to forget that it is not the organisation that matters, but
their member States. And most EU and NATO members, including of course Spain, belong
to both organisations. We are all interested in making the best use of both of them, and in
achieving their fullest possible synergy.
But let us be a bit visionary, while remaining with both feet fi rmly on the ground. There
was a panel this morning discussing the lessons learned from EU-NATO cooperation. Let’s
look ahead. It’s not enough to think about how the EU and NATO could cooperate better,
next time, in dealing with the same challenges. And, in doing so, let’s be critical, and selfcritical,
while at the same time acknowledging the diffi culties of implementing any ideas.
We might call this approach critical realism.
We should be aware that the challenges themselves are constantly changing. The new
threats likely to be posed by the emerging strategic environment urgently demand new
forms of EU-NATO cooperation. While we should of course remain ready to defend
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