"The balance of security in Europe has been broken.It wasviolated after Russia took away and then annexed the Crimea.After Russia invaded the Donbass, after Russia clearly adhered to the aggressive militaristic policy not only with regard to Ukraine, but also other countries of Eastern Europe, and Europe as a whol.Allthis has been reflected in both the policy of European states and NATO policy", - noted Vitalii Martyniuk.
According to him, the European Union and NATO recognize that there are dangers and threats.
"For example, the EU Global Strategy, which was approved in June 2014, clearly marked that "To the east, the European security order has been violated". And there's somekind of recognition, but what's next? This security situation forces the EU and NATO to engage more closely with each other," he said.
As the expert pointed out, the EU is not an alliance for security, although it has a joint security and defense policy.
"The EU was created not as a military but as an economic Union, and therefore security has a more internal, rather than military, character for it. New threats force the EU to further develop its own military defensesector. And inthis respect, a very important decision, which was supported at the end of last year regarding the development of PESCO, in other words, military policy within the EU," he said.
Thus, according to Vitalii Martyniuk, the goals of cooperation between the EU and NATO coincide and are based not only on the fact that 22 countries are simultaneously members of the EU and NATO.
"They are also based on filling the current gaps in the security sector, because the EU has a better-developed non-military security system, while the North Atlantic Alliance is a defense-security bloc and has a militarycomponent. It is nocoincidence that the statement of the NATO summit in Warsaw, according to the results of 2016, indicates that NATO will continue to work closely with the EU, in accordance with the agreements," he emphasized.
"And we know that within the framework of this summit, a joint statement was signed by the EU and NATO on defense-security cooperation. And inDecember of the same 2016 year, a complex of events was agreed - 42 events on EU-NATO cooperation. The main goal of this cooperation is to define the counteraction to hybrid threats," he emphasized.
