Navigating neutrality: How to find the best match between NATO and its four remaining neutral Western European Partners (WEP4)?

Policy Analysis 4 / 2025
By Loïc Simonet

Executive Summary

“Is small still beautiful?” (Gebhard, 2013). Is NATO still interested in the remaining four neutral countries in Europe (Austria, Ireland, Malta and Switzerland)? Can these WEP4 benefit from the Alliance’s ‘return to Europe’ in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? On the opposite, might the Alliance’s ‘war’ approach, with high focus on defence and deterrence, risk marginalizing them and evidencing “the limits of partnership for deterrence” (Aronsson & Swaney, 2022, 5)?

Using the opportunity of the current geopolitical crisis as well as rapidly shifting alliance constellations, this paper aims to assess the current partnership between NATO and the WEP4 and to provide with a framework for its redefinition in light of the new security context in Europe.

While keeping Trump.2 ‘after-shock’, the current turmoil of the new Transatlantic relation as well as NATO’s existential crisis on the way to its summit in The Hague in June 2025, as a background, this paper tries to isolate the question of the WEP4 from the ‘elephant in the room’ and to address it as a per se challenge.

Zussamenfassung

“Is small still beautiful?” (Gebhard, 2013). Ist die NATO noch an den verbleibenden vier neutralen Ländern in Europa (Österreich, Irland, Malta und die Schweiz) interessiert? Können diese WEP4 von der Rückkehr der NATO nach Europa nach der russischen Invasion in der Ukraine profitieren? Könnte umgekehrt der „Kriegs“-Ansatz des Bündnisses mit seinem starken Fokus auf Verteidigung und Abschreckung die Gefahr bergen, dass sie an den Rand gedrängt werden und „die Grenzen der Partnerschaft zur Abschreckung“ (Aronsson & Swaney, 2022, 5) deutlich werden?

Unter dem Eindruck der aktuellen geopolitischen Krise und der sich rasch verändernden Bündniskonstellationen zielt dieses Papier darauf ab, die derzeitige Partnerschaft zwischen der NATO und den WEP4 zu bewerten und einen Rahmen für ihre Neudefinition im Lichte des neuen Sicherheitskontextes in Europa zu schaffen.

Vor dem Hintergrund des Trump.2-Nachschocks, der aktuellen Turbulenzen in den neuen transatlantischen Beziehungen und der existenziellen Krise der NATO auf dem Weg zu ihrem Gipfeltreffen in Den Haag im Juni 2025 versucht dieses Papier, die Frage der WEP4 vom „Elefanten im Raum“ zu trennen und sie als eigenständige Herausforderung zu behandeln.

Introduction

In a world characterized by shifts in global power, NATO’s partnerships – in Europe as well as elsewhere – have made a concrete and valued contribution to the success of the Alliance’s fundamental tasks. This dense grid of partnerships has been extremely useful, inter alia, in bringing countries up to NATO standards of democratic governance and military professionalism, facilitating interoperability of forces and gaining support for NATO missions in Afghanistan, Libya or the Balkans. The identification of “cooperative security” as one of NATO’s three essential core tasks in its 2010 Strategic Concept was reaffirmed by the 2022 events. The war in Ukraine has raised a paradox.

On the one hand, it has resulted in a contested and unpredictable geopolitical environment which, more than ever, requires NATO to leverage one of its greatest assets: its network of structured and individual partnerships accross the globe, which remain “crucial to protect the global commons, enhance our resilience and uphold the rules-based international order.” (NATO 2022 Strategic Concept, para. 42). NATO’s Partnerships 360 Symposium held in Madrid, Spain in November 2023 assessed the complex, fast changing, less stable, less linear and less predictable strategic environment requiring a more resilient Alliance, in addition to strong and resilient partners.^[1]

On the other hand, “partners’ relative strategic importance to NATO has become less salient since 2014”, with the Alliance’s renewed strategic focus on collective defense and deterrence. “Aside from a few capable partners in Europe, notably Finland and Sweden, NATO’s other global partners came to be seen as more discretionary than of real strategic value.” (Aronsson & Swaney, 2022, 9-10). In the current state of emergency in Europe, it seems that NATO has less time to ‘pamper’ those who are not fully committed to its ‘boots on the ground’ approach.

One group of NATO partners has particularly been shaken by the geopolitical challenges facing Europe and the world: the WEP4, NATO’s four neutral Western European Partners Austria, Ireland, Malta and Switzerland.

Traditionally much more discreet – and less appealing for researchers – than NATO’s 'partners across the globe’ – Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan – or than controversial ‘in between’ partners such as Ukraine or Georgia, the WEP4 find themselves in a middle – and quite problematic – position. Since the end of the Cold War, the issue of the neutral and military non-aligned countries’ positions vis-à-vis NATO has remained unclear (Beyer & Hofmann, 2011). Even before Russia’s invasion, the reflection group appointed by NATO’s Secretary General to explore forward strengthening the political dimension of the Alliance (NATO 2030) focused prominently on partnerships “in the North and East”, “in the South” and on “Indo-Pacific and Asian Partnerships” (NATO, 2020, 59-60), without even alluding to NATO’s European neutral partners. The entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO on 4 April 2023 and 7 March 2024 respectively, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the Alliance’s largest reinforcement of its deterrence and defense since the end of the Cold War along its eastern flank (Simonet, 2023a), have highlighted the four remaining neutral partners’ isolated and fragile status. The former WEP-5, the informal collective of “neutral and non-aligned states” of the Cold War (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland – without Malta) which since the 1990s functioned as a tool to influence NATO practices and to support each others’ interests vis-à-vis the Alliance (Nünlist, 2015), has been shattered. With the NATO adhesion of two EU member states, Austria and Ireland find themselves further isolated, both as EU member States and as neutral countries. The shift in influence within the European security architecture toward states in northern and eastern Europe, brought about both by the new NATO members and by the Baltic States and Poland’s hawkish position with regard to Russia, further risk marginalizing the WEP4. Indirectly, the relevance of the neutral group might be affected by NATO’s new Indo-Pacific ambitions, as enshrined in the new Strategic Concept (para. 45) and evidenced by the participation of Indo-Pacific leaders in the 2022 Madrid NATO Summit and the Washington 75th anniversary summit (NATO, 2024a, para. 30).

All the WEP4 participate in NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP),^[2] which 30th anniversary (1994-2024) has been somehow eclipsed by NATO’s 75th anniversary in 2024. A key element in NATO’s political and military cooperation with non-member states along NATO’s periphery, the PfP aims to deepen interaction, cooperation and stability in Europe and to contribute to the overall goal of transparency. It has been seen as a tool both for enlarging the Alliance and for strengthening Alliance relations with partner countries which may not join the Alliance early or at all (NATO, 1995, para. 12 & 31 f.). Its very objectives – to “increase stability” and “diminish threats to peace” – have been severely challenged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which might be the reason why, last year, celebrations have been limited to a postage stamp in Moldova.

In the four countries, the war in Ukraine reopened a global domestic conversation around neutrality on multiple levels and the opportunity to seek closer institutional ties with NATO. While public opinion remains in favor of neutrality, security policy experts tend to value deepened NATO cooperation – if not outright membership – higher, raising questions as to the long-term sustainability of the status quo. Although the WEP4 all made clear that they would not join the Alliance anytime soon, their joint issuance at the end of 2023 of a ‘non paper’ calling for more interaction with NATO (WEP4 Non-Paper, 2023; comments in Löwenstein, 2024; Der Standard, 2024; Ankasam, 2024), with concrete proposals, has confirmed both the relevance of the current partnership and the need to update and develop its content.

First and since partners’ perspectives matter, it focuses on commonalities and differences between the WEP4 states in their relations with NATO, and how this issue relates with national identity considerations which the existing scholarship on NATO and its partners has tended to either overlook or treat as a ‘technical’ problem. Such a perspective fails to take into account the staying power of identities, and how identity is seldom an active, easy-made choice on the part of individuals and groups. Understanding how identities are constructed in relationships between NATO and partners can help in remedying this problem. The general question of how the Alliance’s partners perceive NATO remains under-addressed (Chaban N. et al., 2018), therefore we hope to fill a gap.

Second, it raises and compares different formats that NATO could use to structure its relationship with the four countries.

Finally, on the basis of the WEP4’s recent ‘non paper’, it explores the substance of a renewed partnership between the two parties and offers recommendations in that regard.

Intended for defence and security experts within the WEP4 – and especially in Austria -, the broader NATO community as well as academics and scholars involved in the European security architecture, this contribution draws on existing primary and secondary literature, as well as on qualitative material collected through semi-structured individual interviews conducted with experts and government officials from the WEP4 and former WEP5 Finland and Sweden, including ambassadors and deputy chiefs of mission to NATO, policy staff in ministries of defense and foreign affairs, academics, and analysts. I also reviewed the WEP4’s strategic documents related to their partnership with NATO. The findings present my perspectives on the value of NATO partnership and the ways to adapt it to the WEP4’s specificities. This paper also contributes to the debate about how to implement NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept.

Nota bene: This policy analysis was initiated before Donald Trump’s (re)election and start of second mandate in January 2025. The new President’s constant delegitimization of the Atlantic Alliance and its pillar Article V – and of multilateralism in general -, his doubts about NATO Allies’ will for collective defence, as well as his uncoordinated contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, pose an existential threat to NATO. This will have major implications on NATO’s partners in general and the WEP4 in particular. However, at the time of publication of this paper, we can only speculate about whether NATO is on the verge of a major reconfiguration or an irreversible decline. This ‘elephant in the room’ can therefore be temporarily exiled from the scope of this study which core question, I believe, remains relevant. The oiip will re-address and re-evaluate the state of play during the second part of 2025, based on, inter alia, the outcome of the Hague Summit and the ongoing talks about a ceasefire in Ukraine.

WEP4 position vis-à-vis NATO: Commonalities and nuances

The initial WEP5 have always been sharing common values and a ‘strategic commonality’ with NATO members in terms of their social and political systems (Ivanov, 2017, 147-148). Though truly ‘like minded’ and full part of the ‘Western project’ which preservation and promotion NATO has been considered one of the pillars of (Kolodziej, 2003, 4), the traditionally neutral/military non aligned countries Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Ireland, have remained out of the enlargement process that drew most of Central and Eastern European countries into the Alliance, while sharing NATO’s post-Cold War security priority focused on encouraging stability in Europe.

Until 2022, the WEP4 maintained low levels of institutionalization within the PfP. More than a value-based integrationalist rationale (to continue the process of making Europe ‘whole and free’ by including more states in the Euro-Atlantic community or drawing other neighboring states closer to the Alliance) or an influentialist rationale in which engagement with partners provides NATO with either direct or indirect influence in a way that is of benefit to the Alliance, the WEP-5 have been guided by what Trine Flockhart calls an interventionist rationale in which partners cooperate with the Alliance in missions and interventions in areas of conflict and instability or in facing a number of security challenges, such as piracy, cyber threats or other security issues of relevance to the Alliance and its partners. This rationale is almost entirely interest-based. The functionality/outcome of this category is an enhanced capability to meet global and regional security challenges through cooperation (Flockhart, 2014, 27-28).

Whereas Finland and Sweden have long been labelled “informal allies” (Wieslander, 2019, 197) and massively engaged into interoperability with NATO, the remaining WEP4 come together in their limited defense capabilities. Although it seems to be proven that “NATO engages primarily with countries that are powerful relative to their neighbourhood” (Mićko, 2021, 7), this assessment certainly does not apply to Austria, Ireland and Malta, military “dwarves” in the Euro-Atlantic region, Switzerland being the only country to have strongly prioritized territorial defense as part of its security policy. Austria, Ireland – which has no real defense army – and Switzerland are far below the six ‘ambitious’ partners identified at the 2014 NATO Wales Summit as eligible for enhanced opportunities partnership for dialogue and cooperation (EOP), Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan, Sweden, and Ukraine. Even the category of ‘Advanced Partners’ in which K.-H. Kamp and H. Reisinger and H. Larsen suggests to range Western-style democracies located in the most immediate European vicinity, stressing the benefits of their technological strengths and shared values to bolster joint resilience capacity (Kamp & Reisinger, 2013, 6; Larsen, 2021, 87-88) does not easily correspond to, for instance, Austria’s limited military capacity.

In each of the four countries, neutrality has been an essential factor in the formation of national identity. It is therefore not a surprise that the debate on NATO and neutrality has been quasi consubstantial to political life after the end of the Cold War (Wodak & Kovács, 2004).

Hope that the WEP4 would follow Sweden and Finland’s path and reconsider their position (Hoare, 2023) has now faded. This undermines the realist approach which hypothesizes that neutrality is the strategy of weak states that are located at the border of the poles’ sphere of influence and supposedly the first to be overrun should international circumstances change (Beyer & Hofmann, 2011, 288). None of the four countries plan on joining NATO “any time soon” (McGreevy, 2022; Swiss Federal Council, 2022, 19).^[3] Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Austria had no intention of following suit to Finland and Sweden: “Austria was neutral, is neutral and remains neutral,” he said during a visit to Czech counterpart Petr Fiala in Prague. “For Austria, this question does not arise in this way. We also have a different history than Sweden and Finland” (Kurmayer, 2022). The current domestic context marked by far-right electoral successes should prevent any further move.

Today, the WEP-4 consider themselves “NATO’s closest partners in values” and have a “shared interest in Euro-Atlantic security” (WEP4 Non-Paper, 2023). They see themselves as “contributing partners”, first to NATO missions and operations (FFOR, the NATO Mission in Iraq), second to interoperability and capacity building through education and training, funding and expertise. They are committed to facilitating dialogue and cooperation between NATO and its partners. They are ready to act at the technological forefront and to establish opportunities for participation in the innovation and EDT (Emerging and Disruptive Technology) agendas (WEP4 Non-Paper, 2023). Despite these commonalities, the WEP4 still find themselves in very different situation with regards to NATO.

Geographically, Ireland and Malta are located at Europe’s remote periphery, with no proximity to the Russian Federation. On the opposite, Switzerland and Austria are situated at the very heart of Europe, the latter being almost fully surrounded by NATO members — Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy. With the massive reinforcement of the Alliance’s eastern flank, Vienna finds itself at a few hundred kilometers from NATO deployed combat formations. Should Russia decide to attack a NATO member country and target Allied troops stationed in Romania or Hungary, and should the Alliance choose to replicate, Austria could find itself at the edge of the conflict. The accidental fall of a missile on the Polish territory, on 15 November 2022, was indeed an alert.

Is there a common vision between Austria’s ‘I do it my way’^[4] approach, Ireland’s exceptionalism in the EU’s periphery which M. Ewers-Peters ranges among the “blockers” (Ewers-Peters, 2022, 89), Malta’s ‘wait and see’ approach, troubled with ups and downs ranging from participation to withdrawing and re-joining the PfP programme, and Switzerland, perhaps the most visible a,d active partner within the group? Is their remaining neutral or non-aligned status, their seemingly similar needs and requirements enough to formalize them as a group?

A “buddy system”,^[5] but with whom?

“NATO should strive to work more efficiently with regional partnership frameworks”, the NATO 2030 report advised (NATO, 2020, 58). However, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the question arises what will become of the old WEP-5 and which format should govern NATO’s relationship with the new WEP4. Are NATO’s regional groupings for political consultations outdated, as Aronsson and Swaney believe? (2022, 25). Should NATO englobe the four neutral in a broader format or should it approach the WEP4 as a ‘minilateral’ format? Four different modalities can be outlined.

All NATO partners in one group

Voices within NATO are advocating for a more flexible and wider grouping which would bring in European like-minded partners such as WEP4, but also partners from further afield such as Australia and Japan (interview). There is still a lot of common ground between these nations, though the precise attendance at different discussions would depend on the issue at hand. The decision of the NATO Military Committee, on 14 December 2023, to grant the five Nations of the Partner Interoperability Advocacy Group (PIAG) – Australia, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland – non-NATO Nation Status (NNN), is a step in that direction. Such status grants an individual security agreement that allows the exchange of classified information and participation in NATO training and exercises (NATO, 2023b).

Such approach has merits. For instance, it distinguishes the PIAG & Indo-Pacific Partners, all established liberal democracies, from increasingly illiberal partners within the EAPC (Grgić, 2024, 4). However, merging Austria, Ireland and Switzerland with some of the so-called IP4 (Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand) makes little sense in our opinion, especially since NATO is ostensibly moving eastward and deepening its relationships with key Indo-Pacific partners, in line with its 2022 Strategic Concept (Galic, 2024; Simonet, 2023a). The diversity of interests and perceptions of foreign policy challenges among partners highlights the need for stronger differentiation (Larsen, 2021).

The WEP4 as a group

This would prolong the existing WEP5. It would follow the pattern of NATO’s engagement with the IP4 on issues of mutual interest since 2016 (Galic, 2024; Grgić, 2024, 3^[6]). It would also draw inspiration from a variety of ‘minilateral’ formats which have proliferated on NATO’s eastern flank, such as the Nordic Baltic 8, a regional format for political consultations formally established in 2000 that engaged Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden, or the Bucharest 9, that includes all allies on NATO’s Eastern Flank—from Estonia in the North to Bulgaria in the South (Arts & Keil, 2021, 6^[7]).

Such de facto regional partner grouping – a mini European “non-aligned” group – would not be monolithic regarding NATO coordination and cooperation and would not hinder the variety of interests and priorities each individual partner may have in this regard. But it would facilitate NATO’s ability to gather its member states together with the four European like-minded partners and underscore the significance of their specific neutral status. It would not replace or be privileged above bilateral relations between NATO and the three partner countries, which remain of prime importance to the partners, but instead be a complementary avenue of engagement.

Such a group approach would exemplify common views and interests beyond what a single country’s voice could do and provide each of the said partners with much greater attention and space at NATO than any one of them alone would enjoy. It may also facilitate valuable diplomatic opportunities on the sidelines of high-level NATO meetings. But these arguments can be easily reversed: artificially merging the WEP4 in one group might only make their divergences more visible.

Grouping WEP4 under the same regional ‘roof’, which aims at strengthening regional security, appears irrelevant in many regards. First, NATO’s partnership policies have shifted from emphasising geography to flexibility (NATO, 2011; Kamp & Reisinger, 2013, 5; Larsen, 2021, 85). As the NATO 2030 report advises, “NATO should make more use of thematic rather than only geographic groupings for advancing work on cross-cutting challenges.” (NATO, 2020, 58). Second, as underlined earlier, asserting that Ireland and Malta belong to the same region is open to criticism. As for Austria, it seems much more connected with the Balkans than with Ireland and Malta.^[8]

The geographic approach might also collide with NATO’s relationship with the EU (Rudischhauser, 2019) which is irrelevant for Switzerland. NATO and the EU would now be more closely aligned in terms of their membership: 23 over 27 EU members would also be NATO members; 96% of the EU population would live in a NATO country. Of the four remaining non-NATO EU countries (Cyprus included), Austria would be the only one located not at the EU’s northern or southern periphery, but in Europe’s very geographical heart. The fact that Ewers-Peters ranges Austria and Malta (“neutrals”, generally positive towards EU– NATO cooperation) and Ireland (“blocker”) in two different categories evidences that, even among the non-NATO EU member states, the approach vis-à-vis NATO considerably differs (Ewers-Peters, 2022, chap. 4 & 6).

Just like the IP4 (Galic, 2024), the extent to which the Alliance sees a possible WEP4 as a useful unit, rather than just a collection mechanism or a way to emphasize the importance of the neutral countries, remains unclear. In case this ‘group approach’ would be favored by both NATO and the four neutral partners, the example of the Indo-Pacific partners could be followed.^[9]

Could EU’s strategic autonomy solve the issue, at least for Austria and Ireland? Supporting EU–NATO further rapprochement and interoperability would certainly help to overcome Austria’s lack of multiple membership and thus allow it to compensate for its low level of influence, as N. M. Ewers-Peters argues. The third – and long-awaited – EU-NATO joint declaration, issued on 10 January 2023, certainly provides Vienna with a further insight into the Alliance (Simonet, 2023). Without undermining such process, Austria, which fully participates in the Common Security and Defense Policy,^[10] should be vigilant not to get caught up into EU-NATO mechanisms which could prejudice the specific character of its security and defence policy. The third EU-NATO declaration contains the usual “waiver” (“without prejudice to the specific character of the security and defence policy of any of our members”); however, it also encourages “the fullest possible involvement of the EU members that are not part of the Alliance in its initiatives” (EU-NATO Joint Declaration, 2023, 13). The current developments in the ‘geopolitical EU’ are obviously a game-changer which might complicate a harmonious cooperation between EU WEP4 members (Austria, Ireland and Malta) and EU non-member WEP4 (Switzerland). The special European Council on 6 March has been a decisive move towards a strong and more sovereign Europe of defense, welcoming the Commission’s ReArm Europe plan and intention for a proposal to provide member states with €150 billion in defence loans, to invest “better and together” the European Investment Bank’s plans to step up its support for Europe’s security and defence industry (European Council, 2025). On 19 March, the Commission and the High Representative presented a White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030 with solutions to close critical capability gaps and build a strong defence industrial base. Based on these milestones, Brussels should be in a position to take key decisions before June.

A new “beyond NATO” permanent alternative East European Security Architecture for the neutral countries of eastern Europe, founded on the concept of sustained neutrality, such as the one M. O’Hanlon conceptualized, would be out of purpose today (O’Hanlon 2017a, chap. 3 & 4). And it is obviously too late to find an alternative to NATO expansion that would not antagonize Russia (O’Hanlon, 2017b), provided it would have had any chance to work (Pifer, 2017).

Just Austria and Switzerland

Located in the same area and sharing a border, Austria and Switzerland seem to have sometimes taken the lead, for instance when the two neutral partners featured among the thirteen partners ‘who have recently made particular political, operational and financial contributions to NATO-led operations’ specially invited to the NATO Chicago Summit in May 2012 or when both issued a “Non-Paper on the Development of our Partnerships with NATO post-2014” which was circulated in the margins of the NATO Summit in Wales (Sept. 2014). However, this ‘duo’ approach would come up against the access and contribution to Europe’s defense (see above) and, in my opinion, presents little interest.

The ‘One Partner, One Plan’ approach

Grouping together countries based on history of cooperation with NATO, or on a regional basis may not seem relevant any longer. As Gorana Grgić rifghtfully assesses, “the large legacy groupings are losing their organizational importance” (Grgić, 2024, 3). Rather than engaging with partners through the prism of the PfP, NATO approaches partners on a discrete bilateral or minilateral basis through a more tailored and proactive partnership.

In March 2021, the North Atlantic Council agreed on the “One Partner, One Plan” concept, establishing the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP) as an overarching framework for NATO’s cooperation with individual partner countries (NATO, 2024c). Replacing the earlier Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme (IPCP) and Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), the ITPP integrates various partnership tools into a cohesive plan with specific and measurable objectives over four-year cycles. Its negotiation offers an opportunity to align mutually beneficial initiatives (Grgić, 2024, 3). Switzerland and NATO have defined the objectives of their cooperation for 2023 and 2024 in such a non-legally binding ITPP concluded under the PfP.

Building on the second option (the WEP4 as a group), I argue that both NATO and the WEP4 as a whole have much to gain from a continued partnership. Such ‘minilateral’ arrangement can facilitate political dialogue and participation in missions, or operations, without the constraints of consensus rules or lengthy decision-making processes. It can provide opportunities for the ‘willing and capable’ to take swift action. They also create connections between partners and between the group and key Allies and across institutions to foster greater consensus and interoperability among Euro-Atlantic states. It avoids the bilateralization of NATO’s engagement with partners (Arts & Keil, 2021, 10-11).

Former WEP5 members Finland and Sweden could build on their history and experience to function as bridge builders between NATO and PfP countries. The two ‘junior’ members of the Atlantic Alliance could implement the Framework Nations Concept (FNC),^[11] proposed by Germany in 2013 and endorsed since then by the United Kingdom and Italy, as a viable flexible format within NATO. Voluntary and bottom-up, this approach enables individual NATO members—or framework nations—to work with a limited set of other members to fill critical capability and operational gaps. Non-NATO nations Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland were invited to join the German FNC initiative in 2017 (Arts & Keil, 2021, 9 & 10; Glatz & Zapfe, 2017; Monaghan & Arnold, 2022; Major & Mölling, 2014). Finland and Sweden could be tasked with chairing dedicated formats supporting such formats.

“It takes two to tango”: How could the WEP4 get closer to NATO without undermining their neutrality?

Reforming NATO’s partnerships has long been a constant – and still unresolved – endeavor on the Alliance’s agenda. German Marshall Fund scholars Sophie Arts and Steven Keil see partnerships as “hampered by increasingly outdated frameworks, political barriers, and decreased institutional bandwidth,” just as Europe became less secure (Arts & Keil, 2021, 2).

It is our belief that the war in Ukraine represents an important opportunity for WEP4 to strengthen their common security and address defense capability shortfalls. Their main challenge is “to grasp the extent of recent changes and fully seize the opportunities for collaboration” (Grgić, 2024, 4). Cooperation with NATO enables the Armed Forces of the WEP4 to directly or indirectly improve their own defense capability, without having to make commitments incompatible with neutrality. The four neutral partners should take profit of the ongoing NATO ‘reset’ to re-visit and reinvigorate their partnership with the Alliance, to move it from a ‘security taker’/consumer-driven approach towards interest-driven partnership, based on more converging interests but also, from the WEP4, political focus and support, proactive engagement and willingness to adequately resource its own efforts.

Can the WEP4 further adapt their neutrality?

n each of the WEP4 countries, the war in Ukraine has triggered a notable change of posture.

In 2022, Ireland announced it would double its relatively low annual defence spending by at least €500 million in the coming years, a 50 per cent increase on pre-war levels – a mere 0.3% of its GDP (Wall & Gallagher, 2022). Leaders and populations realize that their countries might not be vulnerable to conventional military attacks, but are extremely vulnerable to cyber threats and attacks, as well as other types of ‘hybrid’ destablization attempts.^[12] This is why, in 2022, Ireland provided €1 million to enhance cyber security in Ukraine, following a request circulated via NATO channels (Irish Partnership for Peace Delegation). Both former Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin and his Defense Minister Simon Coveney supported the evolution and ‘redefinition’ of the Irish concept of neutrality (Leahy, 2022; Killeen, 2022). On 22 June 2023, Ireland launched a reflection process on its neutrality.

In Austria, Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner reiterated her willingness to see her country participate in the Sky Shield Initiative,^[13] the air defense system planned by European NATO countries (Salzburger Nachrichten, 2023). In order to support military mobility and bringing troops eastward to the defense of NATO borders, at the start of Russian invasion, Austria pushed for adapting the European regulatory toolbox to allow “the Member States (to) permit the transit of military equipment, including accompanying personnel, through their territories, including their airspace”^[14] to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Austria’s “engaged neutrality” (Gärtner, 2017) is certainly not an outdated concept in Austria, but the accumulation of events and doctrinal changes since 24 February 2022 might nevertheless impel its reinterpretation (Jonsson, 2022). In May 2022, 50 prominent Austrians — from business, politics, academia and civil society — raised the issue publicly. In an open letter, they called on Federal President A. van der Bellen to independently examine whether the country’s policy of neutrality was fitting for the times (Walter, 2022). The long-awaited 2024 security strategy does not modify the current state of play vis-à-vis NATO, but calls to “exhaust the possibilities of cooperating with NATO in the fields of conflict prevention, crisis management, and cooperative security in the interest of strengthening the interoperability of our military capacities” and to make full use of the Austrian ITTP (Austrian Security Strategy, 2024, 19).

Switzerland, so far, might be the WEP where the “flirtation with NATO” (IISS, 2023) has been pushed to its maximum. In Bern, the authorities were prompt to acknowledge the fundamental shift in European security and severe breach of international law which lasting consequences on European security. Switzerland adopted entire EU sanctions package against Russia (Euronews, 2022). The Swiss Federal Council envisaged “developements” in the cooperation with NATO, with far-reaching opportunities such as participation in NATO military exercises, partial participation in ‘high readiness’ forces such as NATO Reaction Force, or the opening of a NATO Liaison Office in Geneva (Swiss Federal Council, 2022, 22-24). In January 2023, 55% of the Swiss population (plus 10% compared to 2021) expressed willingness to move closer to NATO (« rapprochement avec l’OTAN ») (Swiss Federal Council, 2023a; Szvircsev Tresch et al., 2023). On 22 March 2023, Swiss Federal Counsellor Viola Amherd, Head of the Defense Federal Department and the principal architect of the Swiss policy shift, participated for the first time ever in a meeting of the NAC and met with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In July 2023, Switzerland (along with Austria) signed the letter of intent on the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), a collaborative effort to improve Europe’s air- and missile-defence capacity (NATO, 2022); “Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the concept of Switzerland joining a Europe-wide defence project was unimaginable”, the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted (Saunders, 2023).

The “flirt” should not turn to a “wild marriage”, though (Swissinfo, 2024). The neutrality pledge remains firmly anchored: it has led the Swiss government to deny requests from Denmark and Germany to provide Ukraine with certain military equipment, including Leopard 1 A5 tanks (Swiss Federal Council, 2023b). Efforts by Switzerland’s upper house to reform these rules were voted down in the lower house, in part reflecting a view held by the far-right Swiss People’s Party, which said recent actions have already put the state at risk of violating its neutrality policy (Swiss Parliament, 2023; Saunders, 2023). And the “Neutrality Initiative” which promoted a very restrictive and legalistic approach to neutrality (Möckli, 2024) showed that overcoming the status quo will not be an easy task.

The forthcoming 2025 Swiss Security Policy Strategy will set the tone. In its 68-page final report published on 26 August 2024, the Swiss commission for security policy set up by the defence ministry the year before, traced a way that could inspire the other WEP4. A rigid legal concept no longer seems appropriate: neutrality is an instrument and not a goal in itself. Neutrality policy must take precedence over neutrality law. As the Swiss commission recommends, a greater alignment of neutrality with the Charter of the United Nations and, thus, a distinction between the aggressor and the victim who has the right to defend himself, could be a path to follow. Adapting the concept of neutrality to current conditions would enable the neutral partners to formulate their position on possible future conflicts (China-Taiwan, Russia-NATO) in good time, and to anticipate any demands made on them (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 29). Concretely, the Commission recommended encouraging and guaranteeing access to cooperation projects developed by NATO, and deepening the cooperation with NATO in order to reach a joint defense capability and a real defense cooperation (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024).

Should the PfP evolve to provide WEP4 with further opportunities?

As the main “partnership basket”, can the PfP – just like EU CSDP – provide the political elites of the neutral states with new opportunities to conduct their foreign and security policy and frame the norm of neutrality in different ways, as Beyer and Hofmann suggest? (2011, 293)? Can it make pragmatism easier?

Despite successive reforms aiming at making partnership consultation mechanisms stronger and substance-focused – such as, in 2011, the so-called “Berlin Package (Appathurai, 2014, 39), the PfP seems largely out of date and overcome by new realities. When it was introduced in 1991, it was designed to accommodate emerging democracies from Eastern Europe and Central Asia but consequently expanded to include more than thirty states with varying interests and aspirations. After three decades, and with the introduction of many differentiated cooperation formats, the PfP appears like an old suit turned too broad. With the war in Ukraine, the different formats and contents of partnership with NATO have been relegated to the background. Today, the emphasis is on common defense (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 35).

The new priorities of the WEP4: the 2023 non-paper

What are the WEP4’s expectations vis-à-vis NATO? What is this “demand side” or partner views about the value of cooperating with NATO which, according to Aronsson and Swaney, is missing from the litterature on NATO (2022, 12).

In order to implement and further expand their defense cooperation with NATO, the WEP4 must define expectations regarding their own defense capability, draw up a catalog of counterpart services for cooperation partners and guarantee the necessary human and financial resources. They should be recognized not only as recipients of Allied support, but also as providers. That was the purpose of the “positive agenda” put forward by the WEP4 in December 2023. The 2023 non-paper highlights five priorities to further promote the cooperation:

“Frequent bilateral exchanges with Allies and partners, as WEP4 (and PIAG). Regular exchange and briefings on topics of interest, e.g. RBIO,^[15] ESC^[16] or EDTs. In particular, high-level meetings, tailored briefings and frequent exchanges with PASP.”^[17] Regular political consultations on security issues, including at ministerial level, have been further enhanced by the Swiss group of experts (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 40).
“Privileged access to documents and information, based on mutual trust and cooperation and existing security agreements (including NNN-status for WEP4).”
Early engagement on the shaping of new norms and policies. Including partners before decisions are already made broadens the legitimacy of new norms, and facilitates partners’ willingness to subscribe to such norms. Dialogue can aggregate the views and expertise of different partners, ultimately leading to better policy outcomes.” NATO should make use of the WEP4 to set up the Alliance‘s policies and expectations (Dinev Ivanov, 2017, 135).
“Opportunities to participate in additional exercises to improve interoperability and high-level exercises such as CMX.^[18]” Joint exercises are indeed crucial for prepare for a crisis situation, and to really test and improve interoperability. Not all exercises involve the participation of troops. There are also simulation and staff exercises on possible scenarios and their reactions. When the WEP4 take part in such multilateral exercises, they do so as partners, not allies.
“Opportunities to participate in bodies and formats working on innovation and EDTs, such as DIANA, the Innovation Funds, the Cyber Pledge and instruments like the resilience goals.” Given the growing importance of influence operations and disinformation in hybrid warfare, particularly as a means of weakening democracies, it is no surprise to see WEP4 willing to contribute with appropriate options for analysis, prevention and defense against such attacks,.

Reinforced cooperation with NATO Centers for Excellence is not mentioned, but would have been useful (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 33), just like the dispatch of temporary representatives to NATO headquarters and institutions, as the Swiss Armed Forces extensively do (Swiss Federal Center, 2024, 24).

NATO’s answer to the 2023 ‘Non Paper’

“What does the Alliance actually owe its partners?” The question Rebecca Moore asks in her 2017 book on NATO’s Return to Europe (168) remains acute in 2025, particularly for the WEP4. “NATO should review and reinvigorate existing partnerships by shifting from the current demand-driven approach, in which partner countries determine the scope and depth of their partnership, to an interest-driven approach, in which NATO itself prioritises what it does with partners based on strategic needs and limited resources”, the NATO 2030 report said (NATO, 2020, 58). In 2023, the WEP4 took the initiative, and NATO still needs to answer. However, the Alliance’s lack of formal reaction so far is no surprise: each partner decides individually what kind of partnership it wants with NATO; hence the fact that NATO’s expectations are not concretely formulated, as it is up to the WEP4 to define their mode of cooperation, as well as its pace, scope, intensity, priorities and individual objectives.

“NATO’s partnerships are crucial instruments of cooperative security”, the NATO 2030 report reaffirms (NATO, 2020, 57). But this was before the Russian invasion and, in the meantime, the ‘cooperative security’ pillar seems to have lost traction compared to the ‘deterrence and defence’ one. Since the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, NATO has undertaken the largest reinforcement of its deterrence and defense since the end of the Cold War, and has indeed emerged as the more important agent of collective military action in Europe and “the strongest Alliance in history” (NATO, 2024a, para. 1). The WEP4 will have to deal with a reinvigorated Atlantic Alliance with the wind in its sails, completely absorbed by its new deterrence posture in Europe (Simonet, 2023a). There is a risk that NATO might be neglecting its European neutral partners which, beyond urgent technical needs such as transit of military equipment and access to airspaces, are not of a crucial importance with regard to the defense of the Alliance’s eastern borders. This will make it more difficult for countries at the periphery to attract NATO’s attention. Quite obviously, the Washington Summit Declaration issued on 10 July 2024 did not say a word about the WEP4, although it prominently mentioned the Asia-Pacific partners and the partnership with the EU (para. 29 & 30).

To avoid such risk, the Atlantic Alliance should take a more proactive approach to engagement – what Joe Kyle calls a ‘Proactive Partnership for Peace’ (Kyle, 2019, 67)? The WEP4 can definitely contribute to NATO’s liberal-order-building project (Moore, 2017, 167 f.) at a time when it is seriously threatened by the new U.S. administration. The WEP4 can help the Alliance confront systemic competition from a position of strength that is “firmly rooted in transatlantic solidarity.” (Aronsson & Swaney, 2022, 30). The four partners could be seen as possible pioneers in relation to neutrality.

Conclusion

The summit scheduled to take place on 24 and 25 June 2025 at the World Forum in The Hague could well be NATO’s last. Quite obviously, it is highly unlikely that NATO partners and especially the WEP4 will feature prominently at the agenda of the discussion, let alone receive an answer to their 2023 non-paper. Faced with an unprecedented legitimation crisis, the Allies must – and will certainly – focus on the ‘bare necessity’ and on NATO’s own survival.

In general, the current time is a delicate one for Austria.

NATO’s refocusing on its “core business” – collective defense and deterrence – and the least attention given to crisis management in the 2022 Strategic Concept, restrict Austria’s room for maneuver. Its cooperation with NATO has been focusing on crisis management, peace-support operations in the Balkans, co-shaping the cooperative security activities in the political field and improving interoperability. “An exclusive focus on both the East and on collective defense would reduce cooperative security as well as the role of partners”, H. Gärtner premonitory wrote in 2017. Austria should be vigilant in keeping ‘cooperation’ and ‘partnership’ on NATO’s agenda but, for the reasons exposed above, 2025 should offer little room for manoeuver.
Due to the dangers facing Europe, there seems to be no alternative to a common defense capability including the territory of the WEP4, especially Austria and Switzerland, in its defense planning (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 39). Austria should act as a facilitator. It should make sure not to represent a security gap for European security, particularly when it comes to infrastructures and equipment which are critical for the whole of Europe. In that regard, the ban on re-exporting military equipment purchased in the four countries is not understood and no longer accepted (Swiss Federal Defense Department, 2024, 34). Even if Switzerland is much more concerned than Austria, the Vienna authorities may consider lifting re-export ban for democratic states within and outside the EU and NATO.
At the same time, Austria might contribute to lowering NATO’s excessive ambition, in a context where the Atlantic Alliance could be tempted to invoke the historic disruption of the war in Ukraine to more actively promote its ways and means towards its partners. For instance, concepts like Hamilton’s “forward resilience”^[19] or the “Secure Neighborhood Initiative” (SNI) promoted by former NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow,^[20] stretch the mandate of a more assertive Atlantic Alliance to its maximum and would require careful examination. Due to its geographical situation, Austria could face further pressure to ensure the swift movement of NATO military personnel and their equipment, which could challenge its neutral status. For instance, the calls from the Baltic States and other Allies in close proximity to Russia for a ‘Military Schengen Zone’, “something that would allow a military convoy to move across Europe as fast as a migrant is able to move across Europe”, in the words of Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the outgoing US Army Europe Commander (Hudson, 2017; Jan & Rizzo, 2017), is not to be rejected per se but requires scrutiny in the way it might be implemented.
Cooperation with NATO and the EU is not mutually exclusive, quite the contrary. NATO and the EU work closely together, pursuing the same complementary tasks. More than ever, Austria can act as a bridge-builder between the two ensembles. However, as we underlined, the EU finds itself at the same crossroad. The lines are moving on formerly controversial issues such as joint indebtedness and mutualization to boost European defense. Denmark and Finland, formerly members of the “frugal” clan, said they are now open to the idea. The smooth reform of the Schuldenbremse in Germany confirms that Germany is now in favor of taking on more debt (59% of the German population, according to a poll commissioned by the media ARD – Riesewick, 2025). While defending budgetary orthodoxy, Austria should carefully navigate this change of mindset among the 27 and push for a prudent approach. Trump and his electors want peace, Putin looks forward to lowering the pressure of the war economy, the rest of the world wants transaction and pragmatism. Therefore, transforming the EU into a new “NATO without the U.S.” might not be in Europe’s long-term interest. Austria should also be vigilant with regards to the several ‘coalitions of the willing’ that are emerging to move European defence forward (France-and UK -driven ‘reassurance force’ in Ukraine, Weimar+ format). While offering valuable formats for further more assertive action, these initiatives might, on the longer term, damage Europe’s cohesion and push neutral and ‘frugal’ countries like Austria, wrongly seen as unsuitable for this quantum leap, to the extreme outside of Europe’s ‘concentric circles’.
Switzerland’s new security strategy, to be definitively adopted by the end of 2025, will pave the road. Austria’s own strategy, issued in 2024 after years of brainstorming, might have come too soon and does not fully reflect the variety of challenges that lies ahead in 2025. So far, the Swiss strategy identifies defense against hybrid attacks and cooperation with NATO and neighbouring countries as the main priorities (SWI, 2024), but it will also take full measure of the “after shock” of Trump’s second mandate and its impact on NATO and Europe, as well as the outcome of the June Hague summit. Therefore, Switzerland’s position should be carefully observed and might, to a certain extent, drive the WEP4 approach with regards to NATO or – in the worst case scenario which would be the desintegration of the Alliance at the June meeting – its adaptation and re-orientation.

^[1] P360 Symposium 2023: Understand Better, Adapt Faster, Prevent Together. https://www.act.nato.int/article/p360-symposium-2023/.

^[2] Austria was the first to join the PfP in 1995, in parallel to becoming an EU member State that same year. Switzerland followed suit in 1996 and Ireland in 1999 (Ireland has always called its representation in Brussels “Mission to the Partnership for Peace” and not “to NATO”). Malta also joined the PFP in 1995, but suspended participation in 1996 before reactivating it in 2008.

^[3] In March 2022, the three coalition government parties—Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party—all voted against a bill that called for a referendum about writing neutrality into the Irish constitution (Finn, 2022).

^[4] I borrow to Hauser, 2019, 201.

^[5] The expression is borrowed to J. Simon, 2004, 30.

^[6] While the institutional basis of cooperation between NATO and the IP4 countries is still informed by bilateral ITPPs, NATO is also pursuing engagement with these partners as a minilateral group rather than as a collection of four individual partnerships. This commitment has resulted in four joint projects, announced at the Washington Summit in July 2024, which will focus on assistance to Ukraine, artificial intelligence, combating disinformation, and cybersecurity (Moriyasu, 2024, interpreted by Grgić, 2024, 3).

^[7] Interestingly, the WEP-5 is completely absent from S. Arts and S. Keil’s ambitious study, which further evidences the lack of visibility of NATO’s neutral partners.

^[8] Like a number of European neutral countries (Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Ireland), Austria joined the PfP program during the mid-1990s, mainly in order to be able to participate in the NATO-led operations in the Balkans.

^[9] Regarding coordination on issues of mutual concern, in April 2022, NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners in the agreed the Agenda for Tackling Shared Security Challenges to deepen cooperation in 10 priority areas, including cyber defence, new technology and hybrid threats (NATO, 2023a).

^[10] When it joined the EU, Austria also obliged itself to be “ready and able to participate fully and actively in the Common Security and Foreign Policy” and amended its Constitution accordingly, thus derogating neutrality in the field of CSFP including CSDP (Accession Treaty of 24 June 1994, quoted by Jandl, 2016, 75).

^[11] NATO’s Framework Nations Concept which encourages groups of nations within NATO to come together to “work multinationally for the joint development of forces and capabilities required by the Alliance, facilitated by a framework nation” (NATO, 2014).

^[12] This is probably why Ireland joined the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence in 2019, despite not being a NATO member.

^[13] On 13 Oct. 2022, Defence Ministers from 14 NATO Allies and Finland came together to sign a Letter of Intent for the development of a “European Sky Shield Initiative”. Spearheaded by Germany, the initiative aims to create a European air and missile defence system through the common acquisition of air defence equipment and missiles by European nations. See Khvostova & Kryvosheiev, 2022.

^[14] Council Decision (CFSP) 2022/339 of 28 February 2022 on an assistance measure under the European Peace Facility to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, OJEU L61, 28.2.2022, Art. 5 para. 2, p. 4, https://eurlex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022D0339&from=FR.

^[15] Rules-based international order.

^[16] Emerging Security Challenges.

^[17] NATO’s Political Affairs and Security Policy Division.

^[18] Crisis Management Exercises.

^[19] “Projecting resilience capacities forward to vulnerable democratic partners” (Hamilton, 2022a, 2-3), a task in

which NATO should embark the EU (Hamilton, 2022b, 137).

^[20] “Given the stakes, allies should use NATO’s new Strategic Concept to adopt a Secure Neighborhood Initiative (SNI) that would extend the Alliance’s security protection to non-members along Russia’s borders” (Vershbow, 2022).

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08.05.2025 Loïc Simonet | Policy Analysen / Reports

Navigating neutrality: How to find the best match between NATO and its four remaining neutral Western European Partners (WEP4)? ,
Published: 08. Mai 2025 Updated: 28. Mai 2025.