EU preps 'blueprint' for mutual aid clause amid Trump worries

BRUSSELS (AFP) — The EU will lay out a “blueprint” for how its mutual assistance clause works if a country is attacked, Cyprus’ leader said Friday, as President Donald Trump casts doubt on the U.S. commitment 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 Washington would help defend NATO allies.

Cyprus, one of the few EU countries not in NATO, has spearheaded a push to define how the clause works after a drone struck a British base on the island at the start of the Middle East war in March.

“The (European) Commission will prepare a blueprint on how we respond in case a member state triggers Article 42.7,” Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said as he hosted a summit in Nicosia.

“All member states, the member states that are NATO members but also those countries that are not NATO members, they see the necessity to have an operational plan,” he said.

To flesh out the work, senior diplomats from the EU’s 27 nations will stage a “table top” exercise in Brussels in May simulating how the bloc would respond in case of an armed attack.

The exercise — which will be followed up by another one run by EU ministers — comes as Trump has rocked faith in NATO.

The U.S. 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.

But European officials insist that they do not see Article 42.7 as a substitute for NATO’s Article Five collective defense clause.

Twenty-three of the EU’s 27 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.

“NATO is our most important alliance if it comes to security,” Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said.

The EU’s Article 42.7 has only been invoked once — by France after the 2015 terror attacks in Paris — and there remain deep questions over what it entails.

The clause says that if the territory of an EU country is attacked, other member states “shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.”

But it leaves it up to each country to decide on the sort of assistance it offers and underscores that NATO remains the “foundation” of collective defense for most EU members.

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By Agence France-Presse