Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-01-Speech-3-023"
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"en.20060201.11.3-023"2
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".
Mr President, while in 2004 and 2005 we saw the terrible scenario of the tsunami, I agree with Mr Solana that this year, particular political challenges lie ahead.
Security is not only about defence and military deployment, it is also about civilian crisis management and the wise management of bilateral relationships – and we have a lot of those. It is also about public health: think of avian flu. It is about the environment: think of the Kyoto Protocol. It is about the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Yesterday we had the Afghanistan conference. It is also about working together for institution-building, or fighting the scourge of drugs. We have so many instruments that we can use and apply together. It is not only about energy supplies and prices, but also about the fight against poverty in the world, and our ability to integrate our immigrant populations.
The European Union is increasingly called upon to face these global responsibilities in the field of peace and security. We now have an impressive toolbox with which to do so. But a smart toolbox is no good if the tools do not work very closely together. This, therefore, has to be our aim. An effective crisis response requires instruments that complement one another. We need strong Community instruments working alongside the instruments of the CFSP. It is a recipe that can work. For example, our contribution to the Aceh peace process is a mix of CFSP and Community instruments. The Commission also financed, for instance, President Ahtisaari’s peace negotiations using the rapid reaction mechanism. We have therefore tried to be flexible.
The CFSP launched the Aceh Monitoring Mission to monitor compliance with the peace agreement. At the same time, for instance, the Commission and Member States, working with the international community, put in place a package of long-term measures to support the peace process. Another example is the border assistance mission in Moldova and Ukraine, where the Commission is funding the deployment of mobile teams to provide advice and on-the-job training to Moldovan and Ukrainian border and customs officials.
The long-term objective of facilitating a resolution of the Transnistria conflict matches that of the EU’s Special Representative. The Border Assistance Mission and the EU Special Representative therefore work closely together. Our head of mission also acts as his senior political adviser, and one of his team is based at our mission’s premises. Early results are highly positive. Community assistance enhances the impact of the CFSP assistance, and vice versa.
In neither case would the European Union’s contribution have been comprehensive or meaningful without utilising both Community and CFSP instruments. And most importantly, its impact on the ground – on peoples’ lives – would be significantly reduced.
We also need to enhance the EU’s existing instruments in support of our security objectives. Diplomacy requires carrots and sticks, whether we are talking about weapons of mass destruction or promoting stability and prosperity in our neighbourhood. Access to the world’s biggest internal market or our sizeable assistance programmes is a considerable carrot. This complementary use of Community and CFSP instruments needs to become the rule, not the exception.
In 2006 the task for us all – Parliament, the Council and the Commission – is to work to improve the coherence of our different pillars and policies. The issue will also be dealt with in the concept paper on the EU’s external project which President Barroso announced at Hampton Court, now planned for the June European Council. The Commission will focus in particular on building up its crisis response capacities. Within DG External Relations a ‘crisis platform’ will improve both internal and external policy coordination and will also ensure a more efficient implementation of projects and operations. It will complement our existing instruments such as the civil protection mechanism, humanitarian assistance and the rapid reaction mechanism.
We also want to build on our strategy for disaster alert and preparedness. Under the new financial perspectives, the stability instrument will also help ensure continuity between short- and long-term interventions. Our aim is to develop flexible and responsive solutions to crisis situations and thus be a better partner for the military component of crisis response.
Finally, we will also cooperate very closely with the two arms of the budgetary authority to ensure adequate resources for CFSP. The Commission welcomes the substantial increase of the CFSP budget in 2006 in order to meet concrete new demands. We know there will be new demands.
We also understood the conclusions of the European Council with regard to the future financial perspectives. Our common aim must be to have sufficient resources to cover all external relations priorities, bearing in mind the 20% cut in the Commission’s proposal for Heading 4. In the light of past experience, one particular issue will be to ensure sufficient flexibility to respond to unforeseen needs. I also hope there will be continued support for our stability instrument to enable us to make real progress in crisis response and coherence.
I would like to start with Ukraine and Russia, because that brings me to a very important point. As you know, the Commission – President Barroso, Commissioner Piebalgs and I – have been working both in the background and at the forefront in order to facilitate the dialogue between Ukraine and Russia. The important thing is, firstly, that we – as well as they – have come to a solution. Secondly, we also have learned a very important lesson from this, namely that the question of energy is of great importance and has to be placed much higher on our political agenda. The issue of energy covers energy security, the question of diversification and the ways of dealing with this question in the future. The Commission will therefore prepare a communication on this matter, which will take all these issues into account.
This is the main thrust of how we would like to face 2006 and its political challenges.
The second point I would like to make concerns the Palestinian elections. I wish to pay tribute to Mrs De Keyser. We met in Gaza two weeks ago under difficult circumstances, when the security situation was still unclear. We thought that Hamas would have 30-40% of the votes. Like everybody else, we were taken by surprise. However, let me say that the most important thing is that the elections were held freely, fairly and in relative security. This is already an achievement. It leads me to believe that election observation missions are becoming more and more important. We see it in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Gaza and Afghanistan, to name just a few. In the future, we will see it in Congo and in Haiti. This is a very important tool that we will certainly want to use in favour of all our European friends in Parliament and Council and in favour of the European public.
To come back to Palestine, we had a very important Council meeting on Monday and a Quartet meeting on Monday evening. Mr Solana has already reported on the main thrust of the three important principles: there has to be a commitment to non-violence, the new Palestinian Government has to recognise the State of Israel, and it also has to stand by its existing obligations, i.e. Oslo and the roadmap.
However, we are also faced with a challenge. The caretaker government could stay in place for two to three months. What do we do, in particular with regard to financial support? We in the Commission have to find solutions. I have already said that we would try to release EUR 10 million from our infrastructure facility – there is some money there to be disbursed. We also said we would help with the utilities, paying these directly to the Israelis in order to help that government too.
However, we also have to see what can be done with the money in our World Bank Trust Fund. It was blocked and has not been disbursed because the benchmarks had not yet been met. A World Bank mission will be going there and we will have to see what can be done. This means that we will try to work in a coherent way, together with the President, the Council, the Council secretariat and Mr Solana to see which are the best instruments to use in order to make the foreign policy coherent, speedy and effective as quickly as possible.
Whilst on the subject of foreign policy issues, the Ukrainian elections are forthcoming. Within the last hour I met Boris Tarasyuk. We know how important these elections will be. Again, an election observation team from the OECD, perhaps with your support, will be important.
We could also say that a lot was done in 2005, for example, on the market economy status, where we were working with the Ukrainians. We could work on quite a number of issues that are important, such as visa facilitation and readmission. We hope that after free and fair elections we can offer them an enhanced agreement, perhaps a free trade agreement. That would give them an even better stance and approach towards us.
All of that brings me to the more general questions. Both Mr Brok and Mr Winkler, the President-in-Office, have stressed the importance of the coherence between the different instruments at the disposal of the European Union under the first and second pillars. I could not agree more. In our view, it is a very important task to ensure that all EU foreign policy instruments – development aid, diplomacy, trade policy, civilian and military crisis management, institution-building, humanitarian assistance – work as part of a coherent whole, like interlinked cogs in a well-oiled machine. After all, this is the rationale behind the Commission being ‘fully associated’ with common foreign and security policy. It also reflects the direction in which the Constitutional Treaty was taking us. As Mr Brok’s report highlights, the security challenges we face span the fields covered by all three EU pillars."@en1
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