(Bloomberg) -- Germany made a bid to bolster political unity in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, reflecting concerns about recent high-profile splits in the military alliance.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas proposed to create an expert group that would advise member countries on future transatlantic security challenges. The group would work under the direction of the NATO secretary general.
“It’s necessary to strengthen the political arm of NATO,” Maas told reporters as he arrived for a gathering with his counterparts from the alliance on Wednesday in Brussels. “We want above all in this process to make clear that NATO functions and has a future.”
NATO is struggling to heal rifts both between the U.S. and Europe and among European member countries as it prepares for a Dec. 3-4 summit in London to mark the 70th anniversary of the alliance’s founding.
Already shaken by U.S. President Donald Trump’s vocal demands for European allies to spend more on defense, the 29-member NATO is now grappling with internal political tensions over a Turkish incursion into northern Syria last month to challenge Kurdish forces.
Turkey, which has NATO’s second-biggest army after the U.S., received Trump’s approval for the military operation that European countries oppose. That prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to say a lack of strategic cooperation among NATO members showed the alliance was suffering a “brain death” -- a remark that irritated many countries in the alliance including Germany.
“There needs to be stronger political coordination by the partners,” Maas said on Wednesday. “The questions affecting our North American partners need to be brought more into sync with the European interests.”
Maas said he’s curious how other NATO foreign ministers will react to the proposal, which marks the second German initiative at the alliance in the past month. On Oct. 24, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer showed up at a NATO meeting with a proposal for an internationally supervised security zone in northeastern Syria.
