Lecture by the President of the Republic of Slovenia at Columbia University
New York, 26.9.2008 | speech
Preisdent of the Republic, Dr Danilo Türk delivered a lecture entitled "The European Union and Its Global Role: The Partnerships That Are Needed" at Columbia University as part of the World Leaders Forum:
EU and its Global Role: Which Partnerships are needed?
New York, 26 September 2008
Thank you very much for this lovely and, I should add, very comprehensive introduction.
I am very pleased to be at Columbia again. This is a University, which has very close link with Slovenia. Moreover, at the time when I worked in New York I frequently visited this very exciting academic place and participated in a number of discussion groups. What I found particularly impressive about Columbia University is that it consists of so many smaller groups where you can find people of similar interests and diverse views and people who really develop interesting, exciting, intellectual ideas for the future. So it is a great pleasure to be here and I would like to use this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts on the European Union and its global role.
This is the title of my talk, of which I am sure you were informed. And you can imagine that my points will be made party based on the experience I have from the United Nations where European Union is a player, not only as a collection of member states but also as an entity. In addition, and given the fact that Slovenia was president of the European Union in the first semester of this year, certain experience from that time is relevant for me today and maybe interesting to you as well. These are issues, which will have an importance in the future. I think that exploration of the questions related to EU's global role will remain very high on the international agenda in the years to come. So they are worth giving attention too, and my talk will be devoted to some of the questions, which have arisen already. Finally, I will try also to outline some possible answers to those questions, mainly by way of hypothesis rather than suggesting a definitive answer.
First I would like to say that there is no doubt that EU already is a global player, especially in the area of trade and economic cooperation. We should never forget that EU contributes more than fifty percent of all international development aid. Both in terms of volume and in terms of economic importance of its action globally it is one of the key players of the world. Now, on the other hand even in such areas as trade and economic cooperation we can see some of the problems of EU has as a collection of states and a collective person in international relations. The internal decision-making process within EU often results in the lowest common denominator decisions. These decisions then are difficult to change and negotiating with EU becomes difficult. Very often also larger members of the EU speak for themselves in addition to the common position of EU as a whole and that makes it more difficult to present EU as a single player with one voice. So there are problems in decision-making on the way the EU acts at the international level. The issues, which arise in this context can be divided in two parts.
First are those, which relate to the structure and process within EU. You are all aware of the Lisbon treaty which was concluded in end of last year and which is now in the process of ratification (with several difficulties). That treaty has the aim of remedying some of the problems in the decision making process.
But in addition to that there are also political realities which have to be looked at and have to be understood. Those realities will inevitably influence further decision making irrespective of the constitution arrangements to be put in place eventually.
Let me, in this connection, turn quickly to the experience of Slovenia at the time of its presidency of the EU. It is important to understand that any president of the EU has to be aware both of the structural problems and political problems of decision making. And what helps in the current situation is the idea of continuity of presidencies. Slovenia worked very closely with Germany and Portugal, as the two countries who presided the EU just before Slovenia, and that continuity, the ability to continue where the previous presidency had ended has helped in remedying some of the problems that derived from structure and politics of the EU.
Secondly, Slovenia was engaged in extensive consultation in a number of sensitive and complex issues, such as Kosovo, which came to the point of declaration of independence and international recognition during the time of Slovenia's presidency. And also we had to engage with EU members on the issue of global warming and how to set the goals for the EU in such matters as reduction of green house gasses. That required extensive consultations. So in addition to continuity between presidents, extensive consultations among members are another remedy, another technique, which helps in the process of presiding the EU.
Consultations on policy issues also made it quite clear that for EU in the future its partnerships with other important players in the world will be of great importance. We have hosted the meeting with USA's president, George Bush, who came to Slovenia in June, and the EU managed to make certain progress in terms of American acceptance of objectives for reduction of green house gasses and for making progress towards a negotiated solution for a system to replace the Kyoto protocol after the year 2012. That progress is not yet definitive, but it happened. During Slovenia's presidency, the EU also managed to move the relations with Russia to a point at which the Commission obtained a mandate for negotiations of a new partnership agreement between EU and Russia.
All this happened during Slovenia's presidency. So, at the end of June when our presidency ended, we were quite happy with what was achieved. However, summer brought new problems - the crisis in Georgia and complications with Russia and also the deepening of financial crisis in the world. It is obvious that if the financial crisis ends up in recession than the entire approach to global warming will be put in a new context. The questions of environment will be perceived as less urgent than was the case a year ago when Slovenia was preparing itself for the presidency and during its presidency.
In short, this experience shows that a president who is in that position for six months can make progress, but that progress has to be carefully assessed because its value depends on so many other factors over which a president of the EU does not have much influence.
This brings me to my first conclusion, or first hypothesis, and this is that if one wants seriously assess the position of EU as one of the global players, one first has to define the international context in which the EU is trying to establish its global role. What is the international context today? I believe, and again this is another hypothesis, which I would like to put before you, that the global landscape is one predominantly determined by strategic and political factors. The period of global optimism resulting from the progressing globalization is over. The period in which commentators relied on what was called geo-economics is over. We are now back to the actual reality of the world which is the reality of dominance of political and strategic factors. The global economic situation again is facing serious problems, and one cannot expect political movement forward as a direct result of economic improvement, simply because it is not realistic to expect such an improvement. This is our situation today and this is the context within which the EU operates.
Obviously, a context like this puts very high on the list of priorities for any international actor the question of what kind of global political landscape one has to deal with, what are its basic determinants? During the Cold War the situation was politically speaking relatively clear. The Cold War period was a period of bipolar global relations. That era was essentially determined by the relations between the two superpowers: USA and Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of Cold War, a more complicated world ensued. Very often this era, starting in early 1990's, was defined as the era of uni-polar world. I think that this was an oversimplification. The world has never been uni-polar, the world has always been more complex than that.
I would like to give you one example, which I think is relevant today and to which I intend to return later in my talk. In the spring of 1994 - I was at that time the Ambassador of Slovenia to the UN and I was following the work of the Security Council very closely - the Security Council was handling several crises at the same time. That was very soon after the Somalia crisis, which came to a head in 1993. As a result of those very tragic developments for the USA (remember the "Black Hawk Down") the USA took quite a cautious approach to the question of UN's sponsored peace-keeping, including in Georgia. In 1994 there was also a crisis in Haiti, something that affected the security of the USA. There was a crisis in Rwanda coming to a head and becoming genocide. There was a war in Bosnia. And all these situations had to be handled in parallel.
It would be a gross simplification to say that in a uni-polar world the single remaining superpower simply decides. It was not as simple as that. The USA had very strong interest in handling the issue of Haiti properly. And that was eventually done trough a peacekeeping operation which the USA wanted. In the case of Rwanda the level of involvement of USA was smaller, and France eventually played the critical role in establishing a peace-keeping operation, operation Turquoise, in June, after the genocide. And then there was a crisis in Georgia where the war had taken place since 1991 and required a peace-keeping operation. The question was how does one secure stabilization after the conflict in two places, in Abhasia and South Ossetia. The negotiations, which happened in the Security Council on the question of Georgia, ended with a compromise, and that compromise was that the work in Georgia will be divided between the OSCE and the UN. OSCE will be in the lead on South Ossetia and the UN will be in the lead on Abhasia.
Secondly, when it came to Abhasia, Georgia insisted on having an international peacekeeping force, a fully-fledged UN peace-keeping force. Russia was opposed and suggested a CIS's (Commonwealth of Independent States) peacekeeping force with UN observers. And of course negotiations had to take into account the entire landscape, the three crisis which required new peacekeeping forces at that time Rwanda, Haiti and Georgia, as well as of the other situations which were on the agenda of the Security Council and of other international decision makers. This ended with a series of compromises, one of which was to accept the idea of the CIS peacekeeping force in Abhasia with a UN observer force. That is something that Georgia didn't like at all. Many of us, UN diplomats of that time, also considered that to be a compromise which showed that the world is much more complex than the concept of unipolarity suggested and that obviously there are regional realities which dictate regionally inspired solutions.
I am saying all this because I think that when one thinks of the crisis in Georgia of 2008, one has to keep in mind the history, recent history including 1994 and the fact that at that time it was implicitly recognized that Russia is a factor of stability in the Caucasus as a whole. For that reason it has an important role in providing peacekeepers in Abhasia. I shall return to this issue soon, but I though I have to make this historical reference so as to explain how the world has in fact never been purely unipolar and simple.
What we have witnessed was not unipolarity, neither was this multipolarity in the sense that there were several competing great powers of comparable size and of comparable influence. My suggestion to you for your further thinking is that the world in 1990's, which continues now in the new millennium, is a polycentric world. It is a world with one global power, the USA, and several very important powers that exert their influence in regional frameworks, not globally but in their immediate neighbourhood in the security situations, which affect them in particular. Russia obviously is one of them and it has such a role in Caucasus, possibly also with regard to Iran. China is another one in important role in matters of North Korea and Korean peninsula. In Africa, South African Republic has such as role in dealing with issues of the Republic of Congo - no longer crisis of large magnitude, but still an open question. And of course in Latin America, Brazil is a player who has an important role in dealing with every crisis, including the most recent Andean crises, which we have followed in the past years including earlier this year.
Now, I would like to submit to you for your thought the doubt about both unipolarity which never existed and multipolarity which is not a reality because in the world of today we do not have comparable powers in the world - and it is good that we don't have them, because if we had them their competition for power would probably result in arms race and in a very dangerous world. But we do have a polycentric world with one global power and other powers that exert their influence regionally. The interesting paradox of this is that we also live in an era of relatively high level of strategic stability. This world, which is not a balance of power, which is not a bipolar world, which is not a multipolar world, is relatively stable world, and we should appreciate that. Strategic stability is a little bit like air, when you have it you don't feel it, but if it starts to disappear then one immediately feels that there is a problem. I hope that we shall all continue to appreciate the strategic stability, which we now have and which owes to the existing interest of great powers and others to cooperate, an interest which is, at present, still stronger than the impulse to compete. I hope that such a situation will remain for as long as possible and that stable multilateral arrangements will be developed in this period of time.
Now, this kind of polycentric global landscape leads all the key players of the world towards partnerships. Partnerships of different kinds, partnerships in different areas of cooperation, partnerships in particular in preservation of international peace and stability. This of course is not an ideal world, and I am not suggesting that partnerships are an ideal situation. Partnerships also are situations where problems, disagreements arise, where tensions arise but they are not of the nature of the tensions and disputes that we have known from the period of Cold War.
Partnerships are the order of the day for all the great players of today including the United States but of course above all for the European Union. Let me now say a few words about the partnerships in which EU seeks its future role. There is one partnership, which is more important than anything else for the European Union: the Transatlantic partnership. We should not lose sight of the fact that Europe and United States are destined to work together, together they represent a powerful force for good globally. If they separate their paths they may both find the world much less pleasant place. Europe has recognized that many times, notwithstanding the divisions that have resulted from the war in Iraq in 2003 between Europe and United States and within Europe itself. Now nobody serious in Europe underestimates the importance of the Transatlantic partnership, partnership between European Union countries and the US.
This of course again is something that requires further thought and further definition. How does this partnership work, were are the most important areas in which that partnership has to be expressed and how does one insure that it will remain a long-term reality?
I think that one has to look for certain abstract values and concepts in this regard, one has to develop this partnership in a manner that would stabilize trust between US and European Union, that would strengthen the responsibility on both sides for action in partnership and that it will continuously foster understanding. Basic values, is something that sounds somewhat abstract, are absolutely critical for proper functioning of the Euro-Atlantic partnership. Multilateralism is such a value. I would also like to add that multilateralism is in fashion again. Multilateralism is a concept within which trust, responsibility and understanding are demonstrated and can be nurtured. It is not surprising that in his recent speech to the United Nations on Tuesday this week, president Bush spoke about multilateralism with great affection and great seriousness. I think that this is a good sign and I would like that to be taken as a point of departure for all thinking about Euro-American partnership.
Let me now quickly go through some of the areas in which this partnership will have to be expressed. One of them is the Middle East peace process. EU must play a stronger role in that context, EU should play a role, which goes beyond economic support and humanitarian assistance. The EU could be and should be in the future a guarantor of security once the agreement on peace is reached. The EU should also be able to help in the broader context of the Middle East by engaging Syria and bringing Syria closer into the process and finally making Syria part of peace in the Middle East.
Secondly, on Iranian nuclear issues. It is another area, where Euro-American partnership will have to be expressed. We have to preserve the unity between United States and EU on this matter. That unity would require United States to accept European offers with regard to packages that are proposed to Iran. On the other hand, Europe has to take the question of sanctions against Iran very seriously as a means of showing that we would insist on the direction of non-development of nuclear arms in Iran. So in other words, carrot and stick policy has to be there and both sides have to be in favour of both aspects, it being understood that obviously Europe will be able to propose packages but that those packages of advantages for Iran will depend on how Iran behaves in the future. Obviously this partnership would also require a joined work on public opinion both in Iran and internationally and an explanation that the joint policies of USA and EU are not directed against Iranians or Iran as a state but against policies, which are dangerous and which may lead to nuclear-armed Iran. And of course, this policy also will have to include openness for everybody, including the United States, to talk to Iran when conditions are ripe.
On Afghanistan, I think it is clear that again this is a case for cooperation and partnership. The priories, which currently prevail require steps towards what could be called "afghanisation" of security. This has been achieved to some extend in the area of the military. But it is not achieved with regard to the police and there is much more work to be done. So "afghanisation" of security is a critical important common platform of Euro-American partnership in their policy towards Afghanistan. It must be clear that international community does not seek permanent security presence in Afghanistan but that also it is not going to accept premature departure. There are complicated issues involved here, including drug trafficking, where new thinking will be necessary. The policies put in place so far have not succeeded. But Afghanistan clearly is an area where Euro-American partnership will have to be displayed.
There are also thematic areas where partnership between USA and Europe is vital. Global warming is one of them. Here obviously EU is far ahead, EU has established goals on green house gas emission limitations for the future. USA has not done that as yet, but we in Europe are encouraged by the fact that in the American public opinion and also in the government we can see movement towards a more committed approach to this matter. We in Europe hope that in the next year we shall see an articulation of policy, which will bring EU an USA closer. This is vital because next year the negotiations on global warming would have to be completed in Copenhagen at the end of the year and we hope that this process will be successful. It is possible that current economic and financial problem and possible slowdown in growth will have an impact on the negotiations. We know that, but we still hope that this impact would not be too negative.
Another issue of partnership is human rights, where Europe and United States are critically important as agents for the realisation of human rights globally. In the previous years, in the last three or four years, there has been a deficit in that regard, especially in the United Nations. In the UN as you know a new body for human rights was established - Human Rights Council - and that body is coping with initial problems, which are quite expected. I think that the cause of human rights would be best served if the United States is fully engaged in the Human Rights Council, which is not the case for now. The future of that Council and the future of human rights in the UN depend on how strong the partnership between USA and Europe will be. I would like to plead here for stronger partnerships, stronger than it is now.
So as you can see, Europe and United States have many existentially important reasons to work in partnership. If one looks at the main crisis issues of today and the main policy challenges of the world today, one can see that there is a need for Euro-atlantics partnership as strong as it has ever been, perhaps stronger than ever. But for Europe obviously this is not the end of the story. Europe has to think about the partnership with Russia as well. And I would like to say a few words about that.
Partnerships do not come as a result of an academic design. They come as a result of policy making and policies related to specific issues. The record of those issues and policy making has been mixed. European Union and Russia have had differences on issues such as the Balkans, including Kosovo, on Georgia and on other issues. So we have to be realistic about how far the current or previous policies have helped us to develop the idea of partnerships between European Union and Russia. We have not progressed enough with respect to critically important political issues. We also have to understand, that if we want to have partnership between EU and Russia developed in the future, we should not allow a single, any single issue to dominate the entire agenda. We have to be careful and patient. We need a long term vision and not allow a belief that a single issue determines the entire range of relations, which constitute the partnership between those entities, those two important international players, European Union and Russia.
We also have to understand that Russia is still in the process of defining its foreign policy and the means to implement that foreign policy. And this has to be appreciated. The crisis in Georgia has not removed that, the crisis in Georgia is an obstacle, is a serious problem, but has not changed the fact that Russia has been and continues to be engaged in the process of defining its foreign policy and the means of its implementation. So we in Europe have to understand that we have to be careful and open to better understanding where the Russians are at present with the process of making their definitions of foreign policy. Of course then the question is, how does one see specific problems, which arise in this context such as in particular the crisis in Georgia.
Let me propose a simple definition of what crisis in Georgia has been and is. For this purpose I would like to use a phrase coined by the theoretician and strategies Carl von Clausewitz who once wrote that war is continuation of politics by other means. This of course is a very important dictum, which can be paraphrased in many different ways, sometimes with quite interesting and paradoxically effects. For the purpose of this talk and for the purpose of this concrete serious problem, the problem of Georgia, I would like to paraphrase in the following way: the crisis in Georgia this summer was an extension of the status quo by other means. Here I would like to remind you of what I said earlier that in 1994 it was accepted that Russia has a central security role to play in Abhasia and South Ossetia. So in that sense the principle of territorial integrity of Georgia has already been affected. The circumstance that this was not very visible and that long time has passed between 1994 and 2008 does not diminish the fact that the international community has allowed, for reasons, which I have referred to before, a degree of diminution of territorial integrity of Georgia. I am fully aware of the fact that I am discussing a very serious matter, but let us see all the aspects of that matter when we discus the situation of Georgia today and let us think about the needs of the EU - Russia partnership.
As I said before, we shall not allow any single issue to dominate the entire agenda. Of course that agenda is complex and includes political issues such as those I have already mentioned as well as economic issues, issues of energy and so forth.
I would also like to say, again by way of hypothesis, that in this exploration of future partnership between EU and Russia, there is a need to look for new instruments. One such instrument was proposed by president Medvedjev of Russia earlier this year. He proposed a new treaty on European security. That was done in July, before the most recent crisis. The question, which now arises is whether that proposal was valid then and whether it is valid today after the Georgia crisis. My hypothetical answer to this question is, yes, in both of those situations. I think the idea is worth exploring. It is worth recognizing that the regimes that govern European security have all been established during the Cold War in a different type of international security landscape and have to be reviewed. I am not suggesting any radical changes, I am not suggesting that change is inevitable, but only that a review is necessary. And if that review is served by a discussion on a new treaty on European security let us take that proposal seriously, let us discus it, let us see how such principles as the principles of sovereignty of states and of territorial integrity of states play within the context of the proposed new treaty. Let us use the proposal for a treaty on a European security as a vehicle for discussion that both European Union and Russia need. Obviously, other actors involved in Europe, in particular the US, need and can have benefit from such a review.
So, this are some of the thoughts that I wished to share with you on this two critical important partnerships European Union has to develop. I would also like to add one additional point. When we think about these big picture problems of partnerships in a global world, we have to appreciate the importance of regional and sub-regional arrangements, which constitute this big picture. I have talked mainly about regional and global issues so far. But I would like to add that sometimes solutions vitally depend on what is done at the sub regional level. If we take Kosovo as an example we would see that Kosovo as an individual case can be assisted if European Union develops affective policy of bringing closer in to its system countries like Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia and others. In other words, a proper sub-regional policy, a coherent Western Balkan policy of European Union can have a very beneficially effect on the future of Kosovo, which will be a long term problem and will have to be handled with sensitivity for a very long time.
On Georgia again, I think it is important to consider the fact Georgia is a part of Caucasus region. And that there are many interlocking issues in the Caucasus related not only to political aspects of the situation in the region but also to such areas as communications, energy, trade and others. And some of these issues can best be addressed in a sub regional context involving Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and, of course, Russia. I think that there is a deficit today with regard to this kind of sub regional arrangements. More needs to be done in that regard. I am therefore enthusiastic about the Turkish proposal to develop a sub-regional approach for the Caucasus. This is the right direction to go. Obviously, the proposal itself is still at the initial stage, one that needs to be discus and something that will hopefully be capable of bringing positive change in the future.
In conclusion I would only like to say, that the examples that I made, I believe, demonstrate that European Union needs partnerships and that in that context Europe will have to answer some difficult questions. If these questions are put only globally and in abstract, then obviously we shall get fairly superficial answers. But if they are dissected into specific aspects, into specific key issues, then I think we can come to a better understanding of what the future partnerships European Union with other players entail, what needs to be done and what will be the time frame in which the necessary solutions can be found.
I hope my talk has helped in making you curious, perhaps critical. I am sure you are not satisfied with everything that I said, there are many questions that remain and that you may continue to have serious disagreement with what I said. But that of course is in the spirit of this University, this is the spirit in which I prepared my talk and I am looking forward to your comments and questions. Thank you.