While Cyprus wants the article to be better defined, countries on the frontline against Russia are worried about the EU pledge clashing with NATO’s Article 5 common defense pact.
Seeking to reassure them, Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos told POLITICO on the sidelines of the leaders’ meeting that 42.7 is “not about defense, I agree with that, it’s about mutual assistance.”
If a country is attacked, the article does not mandate that other members have to respond with military force. It says they have an “obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” According to the EU’s diplomatic body, that can take different forms, ranging from diplomatic support to technical or medical assistance as well as civilian or military aid.
Kombos said that Cyprus looked at France’s experience after it triggered the article in 2015 in response to terrorist attacks, studying a Council legal opinion and a Commission document on the lessons learned.
The Council document says that “when you have an attack in the territory of another state, the other 26 have a legal obligation to respond to that, not in a manner that is merely symbolic,” Kombos said. However, the Commission document shows that “there is no mechanism or clarity as to how you procedurally trigger it, what happens then, who talks to who.”
There is a broader effort to bring some precision to 42.7 — something expressed by von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other leaders.