NATO Parliamentary Assembly

 

 

Fostering mutual understanding

The Assembly’s principal objective is to foster mutual understanding among Alliance parliamentarians of the key security challenges facing the transatlantic partnership. It is independent of NATO but provides a link between NATO and the parliaments of its member countries.

Working with parliamentarians from member countries

• fostering dialogue among parliamentarians on major security issues;
• facilitating parliamentary awareness and understanding of key security issues and Alliance policies;
• providing NATO and its member governments with an indication of collective parliamentary opinion;
• providing greater transparency in NATO policies as well as collective accountability;
• strengthening the transatlantic relationship.  

In fulfilling its goals, the Assembly provides a central source of information and a point of contact for member legislators and their respective national parliaments.

Cooperating with parliamentarians in partner countries

Since 1989, the Assembly has also had the following objectives:

• to assist in the development of parliamentary democracy throughout the Euro-Atlantic area by integrating parliamentarians from non-member countries into the Assembly’s work;
• to assist parliaments of countries actively seeking Alliance membership;
• to increase cooperation with countries that seek closer relations with NATO rather than membership;
• to assist in the development of parliamentary mechanisms, practices and know-how essential for the effective democratic control of armed forces.
   

Member and associate countries

The NATO PA is made up of 274 delegates from the 32 NATO member countries. Each delegation is based on the country's size and reflects the political composition of the parliament, therefore representing a broad spectrum of political opinion. Delegates are nominated by their parliaments according to their national procedures.

In addition to these NATO country delegates, delegates from 10 associate countries, four Mediterranean associate countries, as well as observers from eight other countries take part in its activities.

Inter-parliamentary assemblies such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and the Western European Union Assembly also send delegations.

The European Parliament is entitled to send 10 delegates to Assembly Sessions and can participate in most committee and sub-committee activities.
 

Working by committee

Most of the Assembly’s work is carried out by its five committees: the Committee on Democracy and Security; the Defence and Security Committee; the Economics and Security Committee; the Political Committee; and the Science and Technology Committee.

There are several sub-committees, which meet during the year on fact-finding missions designed to gather information for sub-committee and committee reports. Sub-committee reports, like those produced directly for the committees, are amended and adopted by majority vote in the committees. Each year, the NATO PA typically holds approximately 40 activities. These include Plenary Sessions, a Standing Committee meeting, several Rose-Roth Seminars, Mediterranean Seminars, sub-committee meetings and a variety of other meetings.

The NATO PA is headed by a President, who is a parliamentarian from a NATO member country. The headquarters of the Assembly comprises a small International Secretariat based in Brussels, Belgium and is overseen by a Secretary General. The International Secretariat performs a dual function: on the one hand, it conducts much of the research and analysis necessary for the substantive output of the Assembly's committees, and on the other hand, it provides the administrative support required to organise sessions, seminars, committee meetings, and other Assembly activities.

In addition, the International Secretariat maintains a close working relationship with NATO, other international organisations and research institutes. It also provides briefings on NATO PA activities and concerns to visiting parliamentary groups, journalists and academics.
 

The evolution of the NATO PA

The idea to engage parliamentarians in transatlantic issues first emerged in the early 1950s and took shape with the creation of an annual conference of NATO parliamentarians in 1955. The Assembly’s creation reflected a desire on the part of legislators to give substance to the premise of the Washington Treaty that NATO was the practical expression of a fundamentally political transatlantic alliance of democracies.

The foundation for cooperation between NATO and the NATO PA was strengthened in December 1967 when the North Atlantic Council (NAC) authorised the NATO Secretary General to study how to achieve closer cooperation between the two bodies. As a result of these deliberations, the NATO Secretary General, after consultation with the NAC, implemented several measures to enhance the working relationship between NATO and the Assembly. These measures included the Secretary General providing a response to all Assembly recommendations and resolutions adopted in its Plenary Sessions.

Promoting parliamentary democracy in Central and Eastern Europe

In response to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s, the NATO PA broadened its mandate by developing close relations with political leaders in Central and East European countries. Those ties, in turn, greatly facilitated the dialogue that NATO itself embarked upon with the region's governments.

The Rose-Roth programme of cooperation with the parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe was initiated in 1990 by the then President of the Assembly, Congressman Charlie Rose, and Senator Bill Roth. The aim of the Rose-Roth Initiative was, initially, to strengthen the development of parliamentary democracy in Central and Eastern European countries.

The Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the Russian Federation and NATO, signed in May 1997, and the NATO-Ukraine Charter signed in July 1997, explicitly charged the Assembly with expanding its dialogue and cooperation with both the Russian Federal Assembly and the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

Mirroring the creation in May 2002 of the NATO-Russia Council, a major step forward in NATO's cooperation with Russia, the Assembly created the NATO-Russia Parliamentary Committee to allow discussions between NATO members and Russia on an equal footing. This committee became the main framework for direct NATO-Russia parliamentary relations.

In 2002, the Assembly also decided to upgrade its special relationship with Ukraine by creating the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council. The Assembly's cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada was progressively strengthened in the run-up to the Ukrainian presidential elections in 2004. Since these elections, which triggered the “Orange Revolution”, the Assembly has been invited to monitor all presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in collaboration with the parliamentary assemblies of other international organisations. .

Following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and its illegal and illegitimate annexation of Ukraine’s province of Crimea in March 2014, the NATO PA withdrew Russia’s Associate Membership of the Assembly altogether, breaking off regular institutional relations with the Russian Parliament. It also discontinued the NATO-Russia Parliamentary Committee. In parallel, the Assembly affirmed its unanimous support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and political independence, and intensified cooperation with the Ukrainian Parliament.   

Following the 2008 conflict in Georgia, the Assembly decided to strengthen its institutional relationship with the Georgian Parliament by creating the Georgia-NATO Interparliamentary Council (GNIC). It was created as a parliamentary counterpart to the NATO-Georgia Commission (NGC) established the same year to oversee NATO’s relationship with Georgia. The country became an Associate Member of the Assembly in May 1999, and since then members of the Georgian delegation have participated in the many types of activities open to the Assembly’s partners.

Increasing cooperation with partners in the Middle East and North Africa

The increasing attention to security in the Mediterranean region in the 1990s culminated in 1996 with the creation of the Assembly's Mediterranean and Middle East Special Group (GSM). It is a forum for cooperation and discussion with the parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region focused on political, economic, social and security issues.

In 2004-2005, the Assembly decided to bolster its relations with parliaments in this region.  At the Venice session, the Standing Committee created the new status of Mediterranean Associate Members, opening the door for increased cooperation with MENA parliaments. 

Afghanistan

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States, NATO countries were engaged militarily in Afghanistan, under a United Nations mandate, to prevent the country from ever becoming a safe haven for terrorists again. Afghan parliamentarians had an essential role in explaining to their citizens the reasons for the presence of foreign troops in their country; and national parliaments across the Alliance had a direct role in deciding the deployment of troops in operations.

Gender and security

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is a champion of the principle that women are equal partners in the pursuit of peace and security, and mainstreams gender in the Assembly’s activities and policies, as well as into the work of the Committees and other Assembly bodies. In 2007, the Assembly’s Standing Committee started paying greater attention to gender when it recognised that parliamentarians have an important role to play in promoting the Women, Peace and Security agenda. In 2015, following an internal review of the Assembly’s approach to gender and security, further measures were adopted to mainstream gender in the Assembly’s work and promote a more balanced representation among Assembly members and elected officers.