Later that year, NATO Foreign Ministers began putting the plan into action.

NATO subsequently began an active dialogue with six countries in the region which expressed interest: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Algeria joined in April 2000. The dialogue is conducted on a bilateral basis with each of the Mediterranean partners, but includes multilateral meetings with dialogue partners whenever appropriate.

The dialogue is intended to address political topics as well as to sponsor specific activities. The Alliance provides information about its goals and activities as a way of overcoming misconceptions and concerns in the region about NATO. Dialogue Partner countries have been invited to participate in a range of activities in fields such as scientific cooperation and civil emergency planning and to send representatives to the NATO Defense College in Rome and other NATO training establishments to take part in programmes on peacekeeping, arms control, European security cooperation and other issues. Dialogue partners have demonstrated their desire to support initiatives aimed at peacekeeping and promoting stability in the region as a whole. Three of them — Morocco, Egypt and Jordan —contributed to NATO’s Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and are contributors to its successor Stabilisation Force (SFOR). The dialogue is to be seen in the context of a broader effort aimed at improving understanding, building up confidence and creating the basis for cooperation between countries in the Mediterranean region and Europe as a whole. The European Union (EU), the Western European Union (WEU) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have each developed parallel initiatives intended to strengthen dialogue and promote stability in the Mediterranean area. NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue is based on the recognition that developments in the region can have a direct effect on the security interests of NATO countries and shows how security and stability can be strengthened through active programmes of consultation and cooperation between NATO and its Dialogue partners. It is an integral part of the Alliance’s approach to cooperative security.


NATO AND THE OSCE

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), formerly known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), is a central part of the post-Cold War European security system. The OSCE began as a consultative process involving all European states — NATO, Warsaw Pact, and neutral countries. The process was punctuated by a series of Review Conferences culminating, in 1975, with the “Helsinki Final Act”, signed by all the participating states.