|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
European Parliament Plenary Debate, Strasbourg
22 October 2002
Mr President, I welcome the chance to contribute to this debate. As both
the President-in-Office and my friend and colleague, Mr Vitorino, have
said, recent events in Indonesia show clearly that the threat to the
international community from terrorist attacks is still very real -
despite the enormous amount of work we have undertaken in the last year
in an effort to counter that threat. Our sympathy and condolences go out
to all those who suffered bereavement and horrendous injury in Bali. We
think in particular of our friends in Australia and promise them that we
will be exploring ways in which we can work closely with them to
confront terrorism in all its manifestations. We will shortly be sending
a high-level troika to Indonesia to discuss the contribution we can make
to this campaign. That troika will be going on to Australia to ensure
that we can involve ourselves as fully as possible, working in
cooperation with the Australians as well.
We in the European Union have been at the forefront of the international effort to combat terrorism. Our actions in the immediate aftermath of 11 September demonstrate a point I have made in the context of the debate on the effectiveness of the European Union's foreign and security policy: when the political will is there, we can take effective action regardless of the institutional architecture.
Within days of the attack on America, a series of concrete measures was tabled by the European Commission. This led to a Plan of Action adopted, as has been said, by a special European Council on 21 September. A week later the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1373 - a truly landmark resolution setting out for the first time a clear set of actions which all Member States must follow to combat terrorism. And I say 'must' advisedly. It is a resolution adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which means that it is mandatory. It is a mark of the strength of international outrage following the 11 September attacks that such a resolution could be adopted with universal support.
The European Union's action plan is not cast in stone. We have adapted it to reflect new realities, including the adoption of Resolution 1373. We have also prepared a 'road map' setting out the means of implementing the action plan. We have taken practical steps at Union level to outlaw terrorist organisations and cut off their funding, as previous speakers have said. My colleague has just outlined the significant steps taken on police and judicial cooperation, border security and other internal questions.
But all such measures to combat terrorism can only be truly effective if they are applied everywhere - if there are no hiding places left for terrorists and their sources of funding dry up. The new challenge now before us is, therefore, to help those countries which cannot - for reasons of institutional weakness, lack of expertise or lack of financial resources - fully implement Resolution 1373 themselves.
Here the European Union clearly has a crucial role to play. Much of the work which needs to be done is in areas where the European Union has built up an enormous amount of expertise through its programmes such as Phare, Tacis, Meda and CARDS. I am thinking here of the work we are already doing, helping our partner countries establish effective law enforcement institutions, improve border management and fight money-laundering. In addition to the work under way, the European Council conclusions of 22 July asked us to consider what more we could do.
We have just agreed a strategy, endorsed by the Council at Coreper on 3 October, of identifying pilot countries where we judge there is a clear need for help and we feel the Commission has a comparative advantage. We are looking at the possibilities for action in countries of high importance in the fight against terrorism: in Central Asia, South and South-East Asia and the Gulf. We hope to send missions to some of these countries very soon to work up concrete projects, notably in the area of terrorist financing.
We have also incorporated the fight against terrorism into all aspects of our external relations. We are systematically evaluating our relationships with third countries in the light of the support those countries might give to terrorism. In this context, we are examining where counter-terrorism cooperation elements can be added to, or form part of new agreements, as has been the case in our association agreements with Lebanon, Algeria and Chile.
However, it is worth remembering that our external action goes wider than political dialogue. The European Union is a massive provider of development assistance. We provide about 55% of total international assistance and as much as two thirds of all grant aid. This is an often forgotten contribution to international security in its widest sense. Poverty and environmental degradation do not cause or justify terrorism. Nor are the poor more wicked than anyone else. But just as poor people are the major victims of crime in rich societies, so political instability and violence are more prevalent in the poorest countries. Nowhere is this clearer than in failed or failing states. If we are to deny al-Qa'ida and other terrorist networks the territory from which to plan future atrocities, we must do all we can to bolster weak or failing states.
Our action in Afghanistan is a case in point. The European Union is the main donor helping to rebuild this shattered country. The Community alone has pledged over EUR 1 billion from the budget over the next five years, involving a substantial contribution to the operating costs of the new government, including salaries for police, nurses, doctors, teachers and civil servants.
This is what we have done so far in the fight against terrorism. But I want to close with the thought that we can take a wide or a narrow view of counter-terrorist action. The narrow view focuses exclusively on terrorists and terrorist acts, on tracking down the former and preventing or punishing the latter. But there is a wider view too: our actions must be seen in the context of our unswerving support for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We have a wide range of instruments at our disposal to tackle the root causes of terrorism, both in terms of poverty and economic development, and of institution building and the rule of law. It is here that our contribution to the fight against terrorism will have the most impact.
The fight against terrorism is not like a conventional military campaign. It is unlikely to have a beginning, a middle and a glorious end, with surrender documents and peace treaties. It will go on and on, in many different shapes and forms, a few thousand terrorists against the whole of humanity.
Earlier the President-in-Office quoted from Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. I suspect that, for our generation, it was almost as important a document in shaping our attitudes as any by the great political philosophers. When Karl Popper wrote the words quoted, he was referring to the enemy of totalitarianism - a much clearer enemy. In response to that, drawing on other political philosophers like Burke, he argued that, to some extent, liberty had to be limited in order to be maintained.
We face a different problem today. The ability to deliver terrorist assaults on free societies is much easier in open societies. The only way to make terrorism absolutely impossible is by a sort of global Orwellianism, which would itself provoke from liberals, like the President-in-Office and myself, the sort of assault others might regard as terrorist. We have a real paradox here. That is why it is so important that open societies and liberal democracies, without losing their values, work together comprehensively, cooperatively and intelligently.
To prosecute the campaign against terrorism will
require international cooperation of unprecedented breadth and depth:
political cooperation, economic cooperation and security cooperation.
The European Union must play its part in those efforts - vigorously,
generously and creatively - a key partner, I hope, in a well-planned and
resolutely pursued campaign of multilateral engagement.
 |
 |