(Provisional transcript as delivered)
Dr John Chipman
Director-General and Chief Executive, IISS
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the start of the second and final day of the first IISS-Citi India Global Forum. We are delighted to begin this morning’s proceedings with a special address from Carl Bildt.
Carl Bildt is a strategist and a diplomat. He is a thinker and a man of action. He became the Prime Minister of Sweden in the mid 1990s. I learnt only a month ago that he was apparently the first head of government to send an email to another head of government when he exchanged email correspondence with Bill Clinton in the mid 1990s. He is also part of the new knowledge society about which so much was said yesterday. He played a crucial role in conflict resolution in the Balkans, in the late 1990s. He is therefore also familiar with the challenges of muscular diplomacy, about which we spoke a great deal yesterday.
He is now the Foreign Minister of Sweden. He has been a member of the Institute’s Advisory Council and therefore he is an old friend of the IISS. We have invited him here to give what might be styled as a Swedish/European perspective on India and on the particular role that India could play.
Carl Bildt
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sweden
Thank you for those nice words of introduction. They were essentially correct, although I have to give some corrections on the email story. It is true that it was in the mid 1990s and the internet had just been invented. I cannot remember by whom! I sent an email to Bill Clinton’s White House address. Nothing happened. However, we then had to call the White House and alert them to the fact that we had sent an email. Some staff were then able to send an email back. That is the true story of that momentous event in recent world history.
It is always a true pleasure to come to India and to really feel how the world is changing. We are living in the age of accelerating globalisation. It is the third phase of that acceleration. The first phase was the European phase. This was the time when the ideas, interests and individuals of Europe burst upon the global scene. This was some centuries ago, until the time when Europe nearly destroyed itself in the devastating wars that dominated the first part of the last century.
The second phase was the American phase, dominated by the military, the industrial might of America that dominated much of the later part of the previous century. It was also the idealist, entrepreneurial might that fundamentally reshaped the global order that is responsible for a lot of the stability and much of what we still have today.
What we are now in are the early decades of the third phase of globalisation, with its distinct Asian face. It is all really about the return of Asia to the position that the Asian economies had in the global economy for roughly a thousand years or so before the Europeans and then the offspring of the Europeans on the other side of the Atlantic burst upon the global scene. It is about the return of Asia to the place it used to have in the world.
You can argue of course about when all of this started. The rise of Japan has very deep roots. If you look at the long period from 1870 until 1970, Japan and Sweden were the star performers of the global economy, although it should be pointed out, in all fairness, that Sweden had the benefits of peace through that entire period. Let us not forget that, after the war in the early 1950s, South Korea was on the same economic level as Sudan of those particular days. Today, if you look at Sudan and if you look at South Korea, they seem to belong to completely different worlds.
It was really when Deng Xiaoping, in China in 1978 – 30 years ago this Spring – started to open up a system that had failed so miserably and brought so much suffering to the people’s of China; then India, nearly a decade and a half later, under the then Finance Minister Singh, started its new era of reform, that the comeback of Asia started to take off.
The years since then have been spectacular. The impact of the rise of Asia has been felt in every single corner of every single part of the global economy. The last few years have seen the eyes of the world increasingly turn towards India and its impressive performance. We have seen the country growing at nearly 9% per year. It can be argued, indeed it has been argued, that however you define it, 200-250 million people who are the middle class of this country, that they are today the most economically dynamic group on our entire planet today.
This is only the beginning of the story. Everyone is aware, and I know it has been discussed previously, of the challenges that India is facing as it moves on. However, I have yet to meet someone who doubts that these will be overcome one way or the other: some of them will be faster, some of them slower, some of them easily, some of them with great difficulty. The pace of further change and further growth can never be certain. They are dependent on the policy choices decided by India itself, but there are few doubts about the overall direction, if we look at the years and the decades ahead.
We see the emergence of India on the global stage. This happens as the entire international system is undergoing large changes. From a European perspective, it is of course obvious that the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union and its empire is one of the truly defining features of our time. The disappearance of great empires is hardly unique. In the long sweep of history, it is somewhat of a routine event. However, it always tends to be associated with strife, conflict and with major wars. In the wake of the uniquely peaceful implosion of the Soviet Empire, although the decade of rather painful wars of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans should certainly not be forgotten, we Europeans are now engaged in a truly historic attempt to build a genuinely new order of peace and prosperity in our part of the world. A Europe whole and free, democratic and dynamic, united by the rule of the law, anchored in our common institutions.
For us Europeans, the importance of this can hardly be exaggerated, but I do believe it is of far wider significance. In the past certainly, it was the conflicts in and over Europe that twice spread all over the globe and gave us world-wide wars. In the past century, it was the totalitarian ideas of Europe that spread over the world and produced carnage and suffering for countless millions. In the decades not long ago, it was the conflicts over Europe that risked produced that ultimate war that led Albert Einstein to say that while he was not certain exactly which weapons World War III would be fought with, he knew that World War IV was going to be fought with clubs and sticks.
The building of this new order of peace and prosperity in Europe is still a work in progress. Much has indeed been achieved. We now have a union of 27 states, encompassing half a billion people. We are the largest integrated economy in the world. We are by far the largest trading entity. In fact, we are larger than the number two and the number three put together. Most countries – not mine – have a common currency that is now, in terms of value, more traded on the global market than any other currency that is there. We provide nearly 60% of all of the development assistance in the world. We are the largest source of, as well as receiver of, foreign direct investment. We are the largest market for more than 130 nations, including India.
Ahead of us lies the task of step by step including a further approximately 100 million people. Countries that stretch from the south east of Europe, the previously war torn western Balkans as well as the reforming secular democratic Turkey, as well as beyond that and the nations of eastern Europe that might be interested, primarily, at some point in time, a Ukraine with approximately 50 million people, in our quest for a firm framework for the rule of the law, in opening competitive economies, and of common institutions to take the common decisions on our increasingly important common policies. Nothing of this will be achieved easily or quickly. Some of it will remain controversial and contested until completed, but the direction in which we are heading can hardly be doubted.
I do believe that we will see a union that remains the largest integrated economy of the global for decades to come, in spite of the rise of Asia. As it integrates, the energies and ambitions of more than 600 million people with dynamic hubs such as London and Istanbul link us with the different areas of the rest of the world.
When travelling to different parts of the world, I often hear people somewhat complaining that the politics of Europe have been somewhat introvert and somewhat inward directed; that the voice of Europe has been somewhat missing on the global stage. I believe there is some truth in this particular argument. The tasks that we have set ourselves to undertake have been tasks of an historic dimension. In our respective political systems, they have required a concentration of political energies on these particular issues. To some extent, this has been to the detriment of other tasks. It is my belief that this will change in the years to come.
After the Maastricht and Amsterdam and Nice Treaties – and I will certainly not bore you with the details of all of those – we are now busy ratifying the Lisbon Treaty. Hopefully, from the beginning of next year, this will give us new instruments and institutions to develop our common foreign and security policies. To give you the perspective on what is happening, the Treaty of Rome was there in 1957 and then nothing happened on the European scene until the late 1980s with the Single European Act. Since then, due to the changing political circumstances, we have seen one treaty after the other. All of them encompass fairly significant changes in our system of common governance. Some of them require referendums and extensive political processes in our respective countries, including common foreign and security policies, including common currencies in certain countries, including qualified majority voting on a large number of issues affecting the daily lives of voters, individuals and consumers. It has been, and still is, a politically engaging and consuming process as we build this new union.
We have already achieved quite a lot, but with the Lisbon Treaty, we will also get new instruments and institutions to develop the common foreign and security policies. Much has been done in that respect. We have launched 28 European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) missions in different parts of the world. The most demanding today is probably the forces that we have in Chad and the Central African Republic, in order to protect the humanitarian efforts of the UN and others. An ESDP was also crucial in implementing the peace agreement in Aceh in Indonesia a couple of years ago. We are building up increasingly important rule of the law missions in areas such as Palestine, Afghanistan and, eventually, also in Iraq. More must come. We are, with the new treaty, aiming at a Europe which is far more of a voice and an actor on the global stage.
This also applies in the relationship with India. I do consider this to be one of our strategically most important relationships in the decades ahead. On paper, of course, there is strategic partnership between India and the European Union, since the summit between India and the European Union in The Hague in November 2005. Annual summits, the last one being in New Delhi, in November of last year, have sought to develop that relationship.
India and the European Union are the two largest democracies in the world. We are multi ethnic, multi religious and multi regional to a higher degree than any other major political entity around the global. We share a pluralistic, secular and democratic framework that defines the values that are important also in our respective relationships with the rest of the world.
Both India and the European Union give priority to the shaping of a peaceful environment for our respective political, economic and social developments. Both of us do it in neighbourhoods that are not always ideal from that particular point of view. Increasingly, we must recognise that these neighbourhoods that we are concerned with are the same neighbourhoods: the areas in between India and the European Union. We look here at the threats that we are facing. The threat of fragile, failing or failed states. The emergence of areas of lawlessness and chaos. The rise of fundamentalists and violence. The risk of a true clash of religions and civilisations, just apart from the clashes within religions and civilisations. The challenges of energy supply and energy security. The horrible risks that lie in a further proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
All of these issues are of profound global concern. They lie in the regions between India and the European Union. It is the area that, from the US perspective, is covered by a military command that they call ‘Central Command,’ although they start the area from Florida by the Gulf of Mexico. It is an area of even more concern to us, from the political, economic and security point of view. It is an area where the common interests and common values of India and the European Union make for a strong common interest in the search for lasting solutions and enduring stability.
To secure a stable Afghanistan, and to understand that this will require our sustained commitment for many years to come, I do not think we can ever be militarily defeated by the Taliban or anyone else. Building peace, as we should have learnt by now, is inherently somewhat more complex than just winning a war. Recent steps to increase the coherence of the international efforts in the country are therefore most welcome.
Securing the stability of that country cannot be done without the commitment of all of the neighbours of Afghanistan. We must welcome the new democratic government of Pakistan. It is important that it can stay the course during the years to come. It is of course of crucial importance that the country’s armed forces fully respect that serenity of an elected government that is the hallmark of a society building a better future.
We must also seek a deeper dialogue with the government in Tehran on the issues of regional stability that are of common concern. It has a dismal and a worsening record on human rights, and it is still to live up to the obligations laid down by the UN Security Council concerning its nuclear activities. However, the proud nation of Iran cannot simply be isolated into a policy of greater regional responsibility. Europe is seeking a dialogue with Iran and we have every reason to intensify that.
We also have every reason to intensify our engagement with the different countries of Central Asia as they are charting their futures. Some of them must clearly address internal shortcomings in order not to endanger their future stability. However, I believe we have a mutual interest in making sure that their choice, in terms of partners for the future, is not narrowed down to just Russia and China.
We must also be clear what is at stake in the peace process for the Middle East, initiated in Annapolis in November of last year. The final status negotiations will result within this year either in a peace agreement or in the high probability of a gradual slide towards confrontation and possibly war. We all know that one of the most important sources for those rivers of rage that run through a large part of the big Muslim world is the situation by the territories occupied by Israel.
We must also be ready to do more to support the efforts of the UN to bring peace and stability to Iraq. Here, all the neighbouring countries have a crucial role to play, but so does the wider international community. Failure in Iraq will bring new threats to all of us. On 29th May, the International Compact with Iraq will meet in Stockholm, under the Chairmanship of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon and the Iraqi Prime Minister Al Maliki, to assess progress and to see what more can be done. The voice of India would be important in that meeting as well.
We must also discuss how we approach all of the issues of Africa in the years to come. The European Union is, by virtue of geography and history and numerous other things, deeply engaged in trying to strengthen the regional efforts of the African Union. We have historic and other links of great importance with different parts of that continent. We have every reason to welcome the recent meeting in Delhi between India and the countries of Africa. With our common democratic values, they should be the scope for an intensified dialogue between Europe and India, with common approaches on the different issues, conflict resolution and peaceful economic development of that dynamic and important continent.
Beyond these pressing issues in the regions between India and the European Union, we share a commitment to the development of a framework of multilateralism that can secure the benefits of globalisation, allow us to handle common challenges, and make all of our neighbours – including Russia and China – into truly responsible stakeholders in this common system.
Common frameworks are important. Let us take the rapidly emerging issue of the rapid rise of food prices as one example as it is now threatening one country after the other. It is a structural phenomenon rather than a cyclical one, and accordingly requires a structural and a long term response. We are seeing the emergence of actions in one country after another which risk making a difficult situation even more difficult. Price controls, export tariffs, and restrictions on international trade can only serve to reduce the amount of food available on the global markets, and limit the incentives to the expansion of production that is so essential. They risk creating more hungry people today and even more hungry people tomorrow. Without an agreed international framework on acute issues like this, there is always the risk that short-term national responses produce an outcome that is distinctly not in our common interest. That is another illustration of the need for common international frameworks.
The same of course applies to all of the challenges associated with the issues of climate change. It is obvious that this will be the focus in the next few years. We are heading to the important meeting in Poznań in Poland towards the end of this year, and to the absolutely critically important meeting in Copenhagen in Denmark in December next year. These issues also illustrate the need to further develop our institutions of global governance. The role of countries like India, China and Brazil is critical. They must be given place and weight. Also, for example, in the international financial institutions, in accordance with the weight that they have, as well as in bodies such as the G8, and the UN Security Council, as relevant, if the world is to move harmoniously forward in the decades ahead.
All of these, and many more, are issues where I believe India and the European Union share common interests and common ideas. There are strong reasons to seek to develop the strategic partnership further. The conclusion of a free trade agreement. There are negotiations, but I understand they are proceeding at a speed that could diplomatically be described as ‘leisurely,’ but the conclusion of such an agreement would obviously also be of importance.
It may well make sense to start looking also at the possibility of a new and more political agreement between India and the European Union. Both India and the European Union have, in interests and in capabilities, outgrown what was there in the Cooperation Agreement that was signed in 1994, a long time ago in a different age, in a different time.
In this age, of the accelerating globalisation and the return of Asia, there is a need to look at strategic relationships across the world in order to best safeguard our interests and to secure our values. A stronger relationship between India, as it emerges as an increasingly important and democratic power, and the European Union as it now consolidates its institution for its common and foreign security policies is, in my opinion, clearly called for.
