NICOSIA, April 24 (Reuters) - EU leaders have asked officials to prepare a blueprint for how the bloc’s previously obscure mutual assistance clause would work, host Cyprus said at a summit on Friday, amid doubts over the U.S. commitment to the NATO military alliance.
Worries about President Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO for failing to back the war with Iran, along with his threats earlier this year to seize Greenland from ally Denmark, have created greater urgency to define the EU’s mutual assistance provisions.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said EU leaders agreed at a summit in his country on Thursday evening that it was time to flesh out the pact, set out in Article 42.7 of the bloc’s core treaty.
“We agreed last night that the (European) Commission will prepare a blueprint on how we respond in case a member state triggers Article 42.7. There are a number of questions that we need to have an answer to,” Christodoulides said.
Unlike NATO’s Article 5 collective defense pact, which is seen as the bedrock of European security, the EU’s mutual assistance clause is not backed by detailed operational plans or military structures.
