National Interest

by Ömer Taşpınar

    The frozen conflict in Cyprus is a major roadblock to integrating one of NATO’s most powerful militaries into European defense initiatives.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing uncertainty about the United States’ long-term commitment to European security have revived calls for strategic autonomy within the European Union. Greater strategic independence from the United States is an understandable objective for Europe.

    Yet, without military capability, European autonomy will remain an illusion. By virtually every conventional measure of deterrence, the European Union still lacks the military power needed to confront Russia without American assistance. The central question, therefore, is not whether Europe should move beyond NATO, but whether it can develop the military capabilities necessary to assume greater responsibility within the alliance.

    Rather than pursuing visions of strategic autonomy, Europe would be better served in the short to medium term by what US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby has described as “NATO 3.0.” The concept aims to redistribute burdens more evenly across NATO members. Under this approach, European allies would lead Europe’s conventional defense, while the United States would continue to underpin deterrence through its strategic capabilities and nuclear umbrella.

    Building on this concept, Europe’s challenge today is to build a militarily capable pillar within the Alliance. The central objective is therefore not autonomy through separation from NATO, but enhanced capability within the organization.

    The good news is that Europe is already taking serious steps in this direction. Increased spending to allocate 5 percent of GDP to defense expenditure by 2035, coupled with initiatives such as the European Defense Fund (EDF) with a budget of about €7.3 billion ($8.2 billion), Security Action for Europe (SAFE), which provides €150 billion ($168 billion) in loans for large-scale procurement and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which is aimed at strengthening cooperation and reducing fragmentation. These initiatives reflect a growing recognition that the European Union must assume greater responsibility for its own security.

    Building a capable European pillar, however, will require more than increased defense spending. Equally important is overcoming the political and institutional fragmentation that continues to characterize the Euro-Atlantic space. Few obstacles illustrate this challenge more clearly than the unresolved Turkey-Cyprus dispute. Since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the Turkey-Cyprus dispute has complicated NATO-EU cooperation by creating reciprocal institutional blockages.

    Cyprus has constrained Turkey’s relationship with the EU, while Turkey has limited Cyprus’ engagement with NATO. As a result, cooperation on intelligence sharing, defense coordination and broader security initiatives has weakened. A Cyprus settlement would remove one of the most persistent obstacles to NATO-EU cooperation, facilitate Turkey’s integration into a stronger European defense pillar and potentially open the door to Cyprus’s eventual accession to NATO.

• Why NATO-EU Coordination Is Imperative

    While discussions of a stronger European pillar within NATO often focus on relations between Brussels and Washington, they frequently overlook a critical reality: some of the alliance’s most important military and geopolitical assets belong to countries outside the European Union. Among them, Turkey occupies a uniquely important position.

    Few NATO members possess Turkey’s combination of geography and military capability. At the crossroads of Europe, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey holds exceptional strategic value. It controls the Turkish Straits, NATO’s gateway to the Black Sea, sits along critical energy and transportation routes and borders regions that have become increasingly important to European security. This geostrategic position, combined with one of NATO’s largest armed forces, makes Turkey an indispensable component of the alliance’s southeastern flank and a critical contributor to European security.

    Yet Turkey’s strategic importance coexists with persistent political tensions. Democratic backsliding under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ankara’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense system and its initial resistance to Sweden’s NATO accession have fueled doubts in Europe and the United States about Turkey’s reliability as an ally. These disputes have deepened mistrust at precisely the moment when Europe most needs closer defense coordination.

    The challenge is not merely political but institutional. NATO continues to view Turkey as an indispensable ally on its southern and southeastern flanks. By contrast, the European Union has developed defense initiatives and capability-building mechanisms in which Turkey plays little or no role. As Turkey’s accession process has stalled and relations with Brussels have deteriorated, a growing gap has emerged between NATO’s operational requirements and the EU’s evolving defense framework.

    At the heart of this institutional divide lies the Turkey-Cyprus impasse. As an EU member, the Republic of Cyprus can impede progress in Turkey’s accession process by citing the island’s continued division, the presence of Turkish forces in the north and Ankara’s refusal to recognize the Republic of Cyprus. To be sure, Cyprus is not the only factor behind the stagnation of Turkey’s EU candidacy. Democratic and political concerns have also contributed significantly to the deterioration of EU-Turkey relations. Yet, this deadlock occupies a unique position in Euro-Atlantic security because it is more than a bilateral dispute or an accession issue. It directly affects NATO-EU relations and remains one of the most persistent obstacles to deeper cooperation between the two organizations.

    The result is a dual institutional blockage. Nicosia limits Ankara’s participation in European defense initiatives and Ankara blocks Cypriot participation in the Partnership for Peace program, a potential first step toward NATO membership. This mutual veto system has become one of the most persistent obstacles to effective NATO-EU cooperation, affecting everything from political consultation and intelligence sharing to operational planning and capability development.

    The lesson for Europe’s emerging defense architecture is clear. Building a stronger European pillar within NATO requires more than higher defense spending and additional military capabilities. It also requires reducing the institutional fragmentation that separates NATO and EU defense structures and finding ways to incorporate strategically important non-EU allies. Until these obstacles are addressed, Europe’s effort to assume greater responsibility for its own security will remain constrained by the very divisions it seeks to overcome.

• A Europe 2040 Vision for Turkey and Cyprus

    Resolving these deeply rooted constraints that currently impede NATO-EU cooperation is unlikely in the near term. A longer strategic horizon extending toward 2040 offers a more realistic framework for assessing how Europe and NATO’s evolving defense architecture might eventually incorporate both Turkey and Cyprus. Recent developments suggest that conditions for such a realignment may gradually be emerging.

    Confronted by growing regional instability and security threats from Iran and the broader Middle East, Cyprus has shown greater interest in deeper engagement with NATO. President Nikos Christodoulides has even suggested that Cyprus would “immediately apply for NATO membership if circumstances allowed.”

    Turkey’s strategic outlook has also evolved. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ankara has worked to rebuild ties with the transatlantic community, reducing its reliance on Russia, reengaging with NATO and pursuing a pragmatic rapprochement with both the United States and the European Union. Political developments in Northern Cyprus have further improved the diplomatic landscape. Tufan Erhürman’s 2025 election revived hopes for renewed negotiations and a return to a federal framework for resolving the Cyprus question.

    These developments create an opportunity to rethink the Cyprus question within a broader strategic framework. Rather than treating reunification as a prerequisite for all further progress, NATO and the European Union could develop a package of political, economic and security incentives that makes a settlement more attractive to all parties. Under this approach, a carefully sequenced roadmap for Cyprus and Turkey could emerge, gradually building support for a comprehensive agreement and the island’s eventual reunification.

    What distinguishes the current moment from the failed 2004 reunification effort is the new strategic context and the NATO incentive, which could change the island’s internal security dynamics. For the Greek Cypriot community, a credible pathway to NATO membership would strongly incentivize reunification, as it would provide a collective security framework to address the long-standing issue of Turkish troop presence. Such a prospect would strengthen the island’s security, embed it more firmly within the Euro-Atlantic community and transform Cyprus from an impediment to NATO-EU cooperation into a contributor to regional stability in the Eastern Mediterranean.

    When the UN-sponsored Annan Plan was proposed in 2004, the Republic of Cyprus was already set to join the European Union regardless of the referendum’s outcome, reducing the urgency of compromise for many Greek Cypriot voters. Security concerns over continued Turkish military presence, doubts about the proposed constitutional arrangements and questions regarding implementation reinforced skepticism toward the plan. Today, by contrast, a deteriorating regional security environment, Europe’s growing defense ambitions and Nicosia’s interest in deeper integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions create incentives that did not previously exist.

    Ankara, too, has strong incentives to support a settlement. A reunified Cyprus would no longer serve as a major obstacle to Turkey’s participation in Europe’s emerging defense architecture. In the short term, Turkey could expand its participation in selected EU defense-industrial initiatives and gain greater access to joint capability-development programs. In the longer term, a settlement could help create the political space needed to revive a strictly conditional EU accession process.

    Seen in this light, Cyprus reunification becomes not simply a diplomatic objective but the centerpiece of a broader grand bargain. Turkey would support reunified Cyprus’s integration into NATO structures, while a settlement would remove one of the principal obstacles to gradually normalizing Turkey-EU relations.

    A reunified Cyprus integrated into NATO structures could serve as a platform for multinational deployments and regional security cooperation. At the same time, closer ties between Turkey and European defense initiatives would strengthen NATO’s southeastern flank. Perhaps equally important, a settlement could generate positive momentum in Turkish-Greek relations by removing one of the most politically sensitive disputes between the two countries, reducing tensions in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and creating greater scope for long-term strategic cooperation within NATO.

    Whether Turkey ultimately joins the European Union by 2040 will depend on profound political changes within Turkey and European support for enlargement. Any revival of the accession process would need to remain strictly conditional on measurable progress in democratic governance, judicial independence, media freedom, electoral integrity and anti-corruption reforms. Progress would unlock deeper economic, political and defense cooperation, while democratic backsliding would halt or reverse integration.

    If Europe is serious about building a stronger and more capable pillar within NATO, it cannot afford to view Cyprus merely as a frozen regional conflict. A strategy that offers both Cyprus and Turkey tangible pathways toward deeper integration into the Euro-Atlantic community could transform a longstanding source of division into a catalyst for NATO-EU coordination and a stronger European pillar within the alliance.

    For Washington, supporting a Cyprus settlement is not simply a matter of conflict resolution but of strengthening NATO’s future. If NATO 3.0 is to succeed, Europe must develop a more capable and coherent defense pillar within the alliance. That goal will remain difficult to achieve as long as the Turkey-Cyprus dispute continues to obstruct NATO-EU cooperation and limit Turkey’s integration into Europe’s evolving defense architecture.

    Europe’s strategic autonomy debate ultimately comes down to a simple principle: capacity must precede autonomy. NATO cannot build a stronger European pillar by separating it institutionally from the alliance; it must do so through greater military capability, closer NATO-EU coordination and the integration of indispensable partners such as Turkey. Seen in this context, resolving the Turkey-Cyprus impasse is not merely a regional diplomatic objective. It is an important step toward building a more capable, coherent and resilient Euro-Atlantic security architecture.