LISBON: Joao Marques de Almeida, adviser to President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, said Friday that the best solution for the enhancement of EU-U.S. relations would be that the European Union (EU) joins NATO.
Marques de Almeida was one of the speakers in a seminar organized by the National Defence Institute of Portugal in Lisbon. Before being adviser to the EU commission president, he was president of the Portuguese Institution, a government think tank to elaborate on defence and strategic policies.
According to Marques de Almeida, the main difficulty in the NATO-EU relation is the issue on the Cyprus unification. Turkey has the second largest army in the alliance, but the division of the island of Cyprus blocks a better relation with the EU. Cyprus is a member of the EU.
During the upcoming NATO summit Lisbon on Nov. 19-20, chief of the organization Anders Rasmussen will propose the enhancement of the relationship with Turkey, a move that could include the Turkish presence in the European Defence Agency with a full membership.
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