Dr John Chipman, Director General and Chief Executive, IISS We are delighted now to invite Dr Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO, High Representative for Europe, a distinguished politician and actor in diplomacy, now at the Brookings Institution, but I hope from time to time more regularly with us here at the IISS, to provide his remarks.
Javier Solana, President of the Centre for Global Economics and Geopolitics, ESADE Business School and
Former European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy
I will talk a little bit about Europe, which has been and will remain the permanent power. The treaty of Lisbon arrived at a very complicated moment, in the middle of the most profound economic crisis that we have lived through. I think the European Union is trying to resolve this situation in a very intelligent manner. In the coming weeks you will see … two important decisions taken. Firstly, there will be a decision about how to handle the stability of the eurozone, probably next week, and this will be an important contribution to the regulatory mechanisms for the international economic system and to the summit that will take place in South Korea. We may be slow sometimes, but I think we are moving on the right direction, continuing to contribute not only to the welfare of people within the European Union, but also as an important player in the world at large.
Following on from the Treaty of Lisbon, I think one area that is ripe for further work is security, defence and armaments. It is important to consider what can be done within the European Union, and it would be rather stupid not to use this opportunity to work towards giving the European Union a better military capacity. I believe the defence agency that results from the treaty should be a collective effort. At this conference the world of today has been described as one that has atoms, but also molecules. With my background in theoretical physics I can tell you that the molecules are sometimes more important than the atoms. You can think of India or China as atoms, but the European Union is an important molecule, or a collection of atoms put together and ready to share electrons. Sometimes when electrons are shared something much more important than an atom is produced. I believe, therefore, that Europe will continue to grow and to play a positive and constructive role in the world of today.
A long time ago Europe invented the concept of cooperative, comprehensive security. At the Helsinki Conference in 1973, in the middle of the Cold War, we came up with a three‑part agenda – security, economy and human rights. In the Paris Charter of 1999 that was ratified, and we continue to work on it. Three institutions are involved – the European Union, NATO and the OEEC (Organisation for European Economic Co‑operation).
President Medvedev of the Russian Federation has made it very clear that he is not satisfied with the scheme that we have today, and he has put some proposals on the table with which I think we should engage. Starting from the elements we have and without changing the basic parameters, I think we should examine what can be done so that Russia feels more comfortable than they do at present. The lack of comfort does not relate to economics or human rights, but to security. This has come about because of the enlargement of NATO. After the first enlargement of NATO we had good negotiations with Russia, and we finalised an agreement for a NATO/Russia council. That was a very important achievement, but it has not been developed as much as I would have wished. I hope very much that at this year’s NATO Summit that idea will be developed and produce an outcome that will be better for the security of our continent at large and for our relations with a very important neighbour, Russia.
In the past month, and with a tremendous amount of effort, we have resolved the situation on Serbia and Kosovo. I did not expect it to be resolved so quickly. The President of Serbia has issued a statement recognising the legality of this decision and saying they are willing to get involved in a constructive debate with Kosovo. I think this is a good example of how we work; it takes some time to do things, but at the end of the day we get a result. We can see the same slowly forward‑moving process in the case of Georgia. There is also the case of Turkey, which is a member of NATO, a candidate for membership of the European Union and an important, emerging country. I would like very much, and I have already started talking to some of the leaders in Turkey, to see how we can also incorporate in this broader scheme the role of Turkey as an important regional player on its own merits. I would like to finish as I started by saying that Europe is not an emerging player; it is an important player. It was yesterday, it is today and I hope this will continue to be the case tomorrow.
Dr John Chipman
Dr Solana thank you very much for that presentation and also for ending on an important note which is trying to grapple with the particular role of Turkey in Europe and the areas where Europe has wider interests.
