Brexit’s implications for EU-NATO cooperation: Transatlantic bridge no more?
| Date | 01 November 2021 |
| Published date | 01 November 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148120963814 |
| Author | Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120963814
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2021, Vol. 23(4) 576 –592
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1369148120963814
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Brexit’s implications for
EU-NATO cooperation:
Transatlantic bridge no more?
Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters1,2
Abstract
Since its accession to the European Union, the United Kingdom has played an important role in
the design and development of the European Union’s foreign, security and defence policy. While it
is among the founding members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is also one of the main
contributors to European security and played an active part in developing the relationship between
both organisations. With the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, questions
concerning the implications of Brexit on European Union–North Atlantic Treaty Organization
cooperation arise. As the transatlantic bridge between the two organisations, Britain also faces
an uncertain position within the European security architecture. It therefore needs to redefine
its relations with the European Union and its own position among other member states. Taking
into account the development of national security interests and recent political events, this article
develops three possible scenarios that may occur for the European Union–North Atlantic Treaty
Organization relationship depending on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
Keywords
Brexit, British foreign and security policy, European security, European Union–North Atlantic
Treaty Organization relationship, security cooperation, United Kingdom
Introduction
British policymakers and strategies have long mentioned North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) as the cornerstone and prime guarantee for the United Kingdom’s
security and defence, and the European Union as the most important organisation for
economic and trade issues. During the Cold War, there was a clear division of labour
between the two organisations, whereby NATO was responsible for collective defence
and the European Union (EU) was tasked to enhance regional integration. The end of the
Cold War triggered a rethinking of European security and brought about an identity crisis
within the Atlantic Alliance, while the EU sought to distinguish itself as a security and
defence actor through developing the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and
1School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA
2School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Corresponding author:
Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury
CT2 7NX, UK.
Email: nele.ewerspeters@gmail.com
963814BPI0010.1177/1369148120963814The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsEwers-Peters
research-article2020
Original Article
Ewers-Peters 577
the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In the course of these organisational
developments, member states found themselves in a situation where they felt the neces-
sity to choose between either of these two organisations or to support a new form of
cooperation in international security.
With its decision of 23 June 2016 to leave the EU, the United Kingdom will not face
this question anymore. However, uncertainty about its future relationship with the Union,
not only in regard to trade and economics but also in the field of foreign, security and
defence affairs, prevails with the ongoing negotiations on the future relationship between
the EU and the United Kingdom. The Brexit referendum made sway for new initiatives
for defence cooperation within CSDP such as Permanent Structured Cooperation
(PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF), which were otherwise blocked by the
United Kingdom. At the same time, the country leaves a gap in the EU’s military capabili-
ties and external relations because of its specific resources and expansive network of
diplomatic relations. Concurrently, the EU and NATO have come closer and enhanced
their relationship in which Britain has traditionally played a key role whereby it can be
labelled as the transatlantic bridge between Europe and North America and between the
two organisations. It is thus vital to examine the impact of the Brexit decision and the
future EU-UK security and defence relationship on the interorganisational relationship
between the EU and NATO.
Recent analyses have focused on the future relations between Britain and the EU with
a particular emphasis on the outlooks for a future partnership in foreign, security and
defence affairs. These primarily circulate around different options for their relationship
and what position the United Kingdom might take, the implications for the future EU-UK
and UK-US relationships, and different scenarios on post-Brexit security cooperation
(Baciu and Doyle, 2019; Bond, 2016; Duke, 2018; Hadfield, 2018; Martill and Sus, 2018;
Oliver and Williams, 2016; Whitman, 2016). What has been less explored in previous
studies is the impact of Brexit on the EU-NATO relationship. While arguments exist for
Brexit being an enabling factor for closer cooperation and a potential trigger for European
strategic autonomy (Round et al., 2018; Von Voss and Schütz, 2018), this article investi-
gates the United Kingdom’s role in the interorganisational relationship between the EU
and NATO in security and defence up to the 2016 EU referendum, and how this role
might change in the course of the country’s departure from the Union.
In this context, it is assumed that the United Kingdom can be labelled as an advocate
of interorganisational interaction and as the bridge between the EU and NATO due to its
long-standing contributions to the institutionalisation of their cooperation and its ‘“net-
worked” foreign policy’ (Whitman, 2016: 44). With regard to Brexit, it has the potential
to have a knock-on effect on the revamped EU-NATO relationship, and the United
Kingdom might also have the potential to become a future blocker and spoiler of this
special interorganisational relationship, which will depend on the outcome of the Brexit
negotiations and Britain’s future security and defence agreement with the EU as a non-EU
NATO member state. The main question addressed here is what implications Brexit could
have on EU-NATO cooperation. While analysing Britain’s position therein, this article
proposes three scenarios on the impact of Brexit on this special relationship.
Conceptualising the United Kingdom as the ‘transatlantic
bridge’
Over the course of time, the United Kingdom has filled different positions within both the
EU and NATO. It belongs to the group of original or old member states (Magliveras,
To continue reading
Request your trial