Introduction

Since the fall of communism twenty years have passed, and the Visegrad Countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) faced number of problems originated from the Soviet past, but we could experience many new things which brought us prosperity and the sense of freedom.

The process of democratisation, the transition to the market economy, the rule of law are organic parts of the former Western part of Europe, that’s why these were the general bases to be ensured if we wanted to reintegrate in Europe.

As it wasn’t an easy project, the Central European countries decided to cooperate on this field by founding the Visegrad Group on 15th February 1991 in memoriam to the historic royal meeting of 1335 in Visegrad by Lech Wałęsa, Václav Havel and József Antall. All of them (at the time of the foundation the V4 were composed of 3 countries as Slovaks and Czechs lived together until 1993) aspired for the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) membership. The official aims were to eliminate the communism, realise the social transformation and the European integration by joint efforts.

The 18 years of history brought its fruit as nowadays all us are members of the EU and NATO so that the main aims are accomplished but several fields of cooperation still exists justifying the necessity of a Central European organisation.

In the essay the history of the NATO is examined from the EU and V4 perspective concentrating on the milestones only. The cooperation and the competition between the EU and the NATO has been long time on the agenda, and it is worth to pay attention to the future possible cooperation on the operation between these two absolutely important international organisation.

As the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Visegrad Group is fulfilled several question raised upon the existence of the V4 so it is obvious that the essay has to monitor the fields of the cooperation and evaluate the results accomplished on the different issues but a few sentences also sacrificed to future of the Visegrad Countries from the aspect of a closer cooperation.

The 60th anniversary of the NATO

The end of the second World War didn’t bring the desired peace but a new world order arrived: the Cold War divided Europe into West and East according to the reorganisations of the continent in Yalta (4th February 1945 – 11th February 1945).
Sixty years ago, on 4th April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed aiming to ensure security and stability in the North Atlantic region against attacks from a third party (which refers mainly to the growing expansionist threat from the Soviet Union).

The constant enlargement (except for France, which left the NATO in 1966 according to the decision of Charles de Gaulle but returned under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy) during the last sixty years resulted that the organisation has extended from the 12 founder states to 28 members.

Of course the USSR couldn’t just simply look the foundation of such a military organisation so six years later the Warsaw Pact was born to counterbalance the joint power of the Atlantic countries. Contrary to the still existing NATO, the Warsaw Pact sank together with the Soviet Union. Although the emptiness caused by the disappearance of this latter military alliance, the main purpose and enemy of the NATO was eliminated creating an “identity crisis”.

As one of the greatest manifestations to prove that a new world order was born with the dissolution of the USSR, the republics which were ruled by the Soviets (but weren’t members of the Soviet Union) could join the NATO.

The Partnership for Peace (PfP) was launched in 1994 January for the V4 countries in the framework of the NATO. Establishment of PfP was calculated, to enclose former communist countries to NATO without annoying Russia. The Madrid Summit in 1997 marked the beginning of the NATO accession negotiation for Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

The first ones of the former Soviet Bloc were the three of the V4 who joined the NATO: Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic were welcomed in the alliance in 1999, Slovakia belonged to the second wave – after the fall of communism – along with Slovenia, the Baltic states, Bulgaria and Romania in 2004. Croatia and Albania showing that it is possible to recover from the Balkan war, joint the alliance in 2009.

Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia are in the Partnership for Peace which is considered as the starting point on the road to the NATO. Macedonia because of it’s name dispute with Greece, first has to settle the debate than could belong to the Partnership for Peace.

As both the NATO and the European Union stated same purposes the cooperation between the two international organisations is inevitable. In the name of peace both of them endure to prevent and to solve crises and armed conflicts, fight against terrorism and to ensure stability by harmonising the military and civil dimension of the organisations.

The cooperation started by the Maastricht Treaty which created the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as a separate pillar of the EU, and together with the Western Union the road to the joint missions were based.

The next step was the Combined Joint Task Forces accompanied by the Berlin agreement in 1994 which aimed to harmonise the cooperation between Europe and NATO by developing the capabilities of the old continent. The Berlin plus five years later reinforced the European wish to posses the capacity for a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

The institutionalisation framework of the relations was reached in 2001 and since then, NATO-EU summits have been hold several times. The real milestone was in 2004 by the initiative of creating the EU Rapid Reaction Units composed of EU Battlegroups (EU BG).

The cooperation in practice started in Bosnian war, where in 1995 the NATO deployed the Implementation Force (IFOR) to secure the Dayton Peace Treaty. It was transformed to the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) two years later, then in 2004 the EU Force (EUFOR)got the responsibility to ensure the peace in the region with less and less soldiers.

The Balkan Peninsula brought another field to prove the effectivity of the cooperation: after the Kosovo war the NATO deployed the Kosovo Force (KFOR) complemented by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), to it’s civil part the Community contributed as well. Since 2008, the EU operates other civilian mission there: the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX). In 2003, the Macedonian civil war exacted the assistance of these international organisations.

Beyond Europe the EU and the NATO try to secure stability in Afghanistan as well: the NATO operates the multinational International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the EU launched its Rule of Law Mission (EUPOL) too.

The African continent also suffers from civil wars: the NATO and the EU gave assistance to the African Union in the Darfur and Sudan conflict. The new field of the team work was created due to the spreading piracy off the coast of Somalia. Since September 2008 EU naval forces has been controlling the corn of the Africa along with some other parties.