EUcountries will hold a “tabletop exercise” to test the bloc’s mutual assistance clause, officials said Friday, as President Donald Trump casts doubt on the US committment to NATO.
Attention has increased on Article 42.7 of the EU’s governing treaty — meant to help any member state that comes under attack — as Trump has deepened questions over whether the United States would help defend NATO allies.
Momentum grew further after a drone struck a British base on Cyprus, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, at the start of the Middle East war in March.
Representatives from the EU’s 27 nations in Brussels will stage an exercise in May simulating how the bloc would respond in case of an armed attack, a senior EU official said.
“What we’re doing is that we’re looking and going through the practical ways: How does it work? What can we do?” the official said.
The exercise — which will be followed up by another one run by EU ministers — comes as Trump has rocked faith in NATO.
The US leader has angrily lashed out at European countries over their response to his war with Iran and suggested he could quit the 77-year-old military alliance.
European Commission headUrsula von der Leyenat the Munich Security Conference in February said that the bloc needed to bring its own “mutual defence clause to life”.
But EU officials insist that they do not see Article 42.7 as a substitute for NATO’s Article Five collective defence clause.
Twenty three of the EU’s member states are also in NATO and they are keen not to fuel any thinking by Trump that he can walk away from the alliance.
Source: Insider Paper
