The Euro-Atlantic Brand

Abstract

“Euro-Atlantic” as a political power brand name was employed possibly for the first time in a 1985 speech by Bettino Craxi, then president of the European Council, when he spoke about “Italy's Euro-Atlantic role.” Its political usage was codified in the label Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), a group formed in 1997 and which now numbers fifty “partner” governments. EAPC is the successor to the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. (The NACC was created as an adjunct to NATO six years earlier in the first flush of post–Cold War Europe.) Among EAPC partners are not only eleven far-flung (and non-Atlantic-riparian) governments of the former Soviet Union—from Armenia to Uzbekistan—but also the six republics of the former Yugoslavia. Russia itself is listed among the partners, although its leaders remain highly suspicious of the NATO parent.