European Security & Defence Policy

WEU Council of Ministers, Luxembourg

23 November 1999

I am grateful and honoured to have been invited to speak at this Council. It is the first time that the Commission formally addresses this forum. I think it is significant, and encouraging, that I do so together with Javier Solana, who appears before you not only as the EU High Representative but who will today also be appointed Secretary General of the WEU. These small events show how far we have come in the last years. The work done concurrently in the WEU and the EU since Amsterdam has paved the way for a first set of decisions in Helsinki on concrete measures to draw the EU and WEU closer and to develop our capacity for conflict prevention and crisis management. We need to do this because more is expected of Europe in the security field today than in the past, by our own citizens and by our international partners.

Last week, when I spoke to the historic first joint meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers in the EU General Affairs Council, I stressed that the Commission is determined to play its full part in meeting the challenge set by the Amsterdam Treaty and The Cologne Declaration. I hardly need to remind you that we have nothing to say on military matters. I am convinced, however, that we have the means and experience to make an important contribution to the non-military dimension.

There are two principal dimensions to that contribution, improving non-military crisis management and developing a strong and competitive economic base to the common security and defence policy.

To begin with the latter, it is clear that a European security and defence policy cannot be developed in the absence of a competitive and open European defence industrial and technological base. This is also in the interest of the European Union's partners. The Commission will bring its contribution to bear in this area through a range of instruments in areas like public procurement, internal market, research and competition. This will complement the valuable work already undertaken within the WEU framework.

Turning to conflict prevention and crisis management, the increasing sophistication and interdependence of our societies have heightened to potential contribution of the EU as a civil power. But we have to be able to envisage action right across the whole range of the instruments at our disposal. I am not thinking just of the obvious areas like humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation and reconstruction. The measures we can take with the aim of preventing conflict and human suffering include other things as well, like law enforcement, institution building and trade policy.

In many cases we will need to deploy, jointly through the EU and the WEU, coordinated military and civil action to prevent conflict or to manage crises. We have seen that in the Western Balkans and, more recently, in East Timor. We have to improve our ability to give a coherent input into crisis management at European level and internationally, with our partners and through the UN. Finally we have to make sure that we have the capacity to respond rapidly. The new Commission has set as one of its top priorities the improvement of policy delivery through more efficient programme management.

The Commission is already cooperating with the WEU for the success of missions such as the demining in Bosnia and the reestablishment of a viable police force in Albania. We also worked together on monitoring the situation in Kosovo.

There will be many other occasions. Achieving early and concrete results in the Stability Pact process, through actions such as demining, border controls and institution building, is one example possible common ground in the near future.

I am convinced that the work done to prepare this Council and the parallel discussions leading up to the Helsinki European Council will both widen the scope and improve the instruments for even closer cooperation in the future.