Articles of association

HERE is a question for international relations students, diplomats, warmongers and others. Compare the following two clauses

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

And

If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

The first of these is pretty well known: it is the famous Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter. The other is the more obscure but still interesting Article 42/7 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty.

A thought-provoking speech at RUSI in London by ErkkiTuomioja, a former Finnish foreign minister, teases out some of the issues raised by the overlap of these two clauses. His country, of course, is not in NATO (and most Finns want to keep it that way). But it is strongly committed (with strong public support) to European collec! tive sec urity. It is tantalising to imagine how that might work in the Baltic and Nordic region, where some countries (Iceland and Norway) are not in the EU, while Finland and Sweden are not in NATO, and the countries that most need defending (the Baltics) are the ones with the weakest military. A lot of the speech is carefully couched and uncontroversial, but it does contain an ingenious proposal, that

The EU could proceed by integrating Iceland and Norway through a separate agreed arrangement to full and mutual coverage of the EU's article 42-7 obligations.

The precedent would be Schengen (which is an EU project shared by non-EU countries). He continues

The obvious advantage is that instead of creating potential uncertainty about the article which a separate Nordic solidarity clause would do, it could clarify the situation and eliminate any potential divisions in the EU. This would not, understandably, be possible without the EU at the same time coming to some sort of minimum understanding of what the article actually entails. This might not be easy as no-one in any official position has yet prepared this, but forcing the EU to do the hard and concrete thinking on the subject which so far has been avoided should be regarded, not as an obstacle but, as a welcome opportunity for the EU to complete some unfinished business.

Finns are not known for being chatty. But when they do talk, they are worth listening to. Mr Tuomioja's speech comes amid some other interesting developments. Britain's defence minister Liam Fox wowed his Baltic opposite numbers at a recent meeting in Oslo, saying that Britain was going to boost its involvement in the Nordic and Baltic region. He told the House of Commons in November

We want a closer bilateral relationship with Norway, which is one of our key strategic partners. We want to create a NATO framework that makes it easier ! for Swed en and Finland to have a closer relationship, and as a nuclear power we want to give even greater reassurance to the Baltic states about the reality of article 5 of the NATO treaty.

The security of northern Europe remains an interesting loose end. Who is going to tie it up?