Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 13 - Año: 2019 - Págs.: 243 a 274 255 Bernardo González-Lázaro Sueiras Defense cooperation between Portugal… INICIATIVE FORMAT and CREATION OBJETIVES The Élysée Treaty Bilateral Agreement (1963), (GER, FRA) strengthened in 1988 · Political-military approach · Inter-operability, training of forces · Mixed military units The Weimar Triangle (GER, FRA, POL) Ministerial Declaration (1991) · Political-military approach The Visegrad Group (CZE, HUN, POL, SLO) Meeting of Defense Ministers (1999) · Political-military approach · Inter-operability, training of forces · Industrial and Capability Projects NORDEFCO (DNK, FIN, ICE, NOR, SWE) Protocole (2009) · Inte-roperability, training of forces · Industrial and Capability Projects Lancaster House Treaties (FRA, RU) Bilateral Agreement (2010) · Industrial and Capability Projects. Inter-operability, training of forces · Nuclear (testing infrastructures) Project Griffin (GER, NDL) Declaration of Intentions (2013) Concept of Nation-framework · Industrial and Capability Projects In-teroperability, training of forces · Mixed military units Table I≠– Principal sub-regional cooperation initiatives in Europe Source: Elaborated by the author using Pertusot, 2015, 29. Their main advantages are flexibility, acceptability of the projects and the fact that they can reach results very rapidly (Drent, Zandee, and Csteleijn, 2014, 16). In spite of this, the danger of fragmentation that this means at a European level still persists if the result of the improvement of national capabilities is not coordinated in a “cluster of clusters” (Kempin and Scheler, 2015, 48). Undoubtedly, these initiatives can reduce costs and, if they are adequately coordinated, they can contribute to increasing the performance of European defense, building capabilities of regional range; bringing about harmonization and interoperability of military equipment; creating common maintenance and shared training and education as well as common infrastructures; and even creating mixed operational units (Drent et al., 2013, 10). The sub-regional projects are viewed in contradictory fashion, seen either as being for the improvement of cooperation, or as a limitation to more global initiatives at the European level (Cîrlig, 2015, 6). These options of variable geometry can contribute to the construction of European defense if they are part of the CSDP framework and they promote the general interest of the EU. In any case, the initiatives mentioned have mostly had the aim of preserving national interests, based on specific projects and priorities that have not been able to attract the interest of other MS (Ballesteros et al., 2013, 27). Three models of cooperation can be distinguished on an ascending scale in terms of sovereignty demands(Drent et al., 2013, 12): (a) Modular, whereby the participants complement and strengthen each other, but the modules are still independent and detachable without cooperation from others (i.e.: the Belgian and Dutch naval co-operation – BENESAM, or the French-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force – CJEF); (b) Integration, whereby the projection of a capability is possible only when all the participants contribute (i.e.: 1st DEU-NDL Force HQ); and (c) Specialization:
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