Summary

The process of adapting the European security organizations to the post-cold war environment made further progress in 1998. The three Protocols of Accession to NATO, which had been signed with the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in December 1997, were ratified by the parliaments of the NATO members and the aspirant states in 1998 and early 1999. This laid the legal foundation for the enlargement of NATO in March 1999, prior to the Washington NATO summit meeting held in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. In March 1998 formal negotiations were opened with six candidates for membership of the European Union (EU). Qualitatively new tasks were entrusted to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as a result of developments in 1998 in the Kosovo conflict in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Decisions adopted during the year bore witness to the fact that the European multilateral security organizations are no longer based on a relationship between two adversarial alliances but on a common system of values among states. In 1998 the European security debate focused to a great extent on the future missions and mandates of the major security institutions - NATO, the EU, the Western European Union (WEU) and the OSCE - and their interrelationships as well as on the role of the major powers within these organizations.

The European security organizations will need to take creative and bold action if they are to implement the necessary reforms to be able to prepare for and address the security risks and challenges to Europe in the next century. The December 1998 British-French Joint Declaration on European Defence, the Saint-Malo initiative, presented some 'fresh thinking' on and mapped out the future direction of European common defence within the EU. In consolidating transatlantic relations and coordinating the activities of these organizations, the United States must become a member of genuine partnerships rather than a hegemonic actor in NATO and the OSCE and in its relations with the EU and individual European states.

Appendix 6A. Documents on European Security

Appendix 6A reproduces the texts of the Oslo Ministerial Declaration, the British–French Joint Declaration on European Defence and the Act of Ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty by Poland.