International Seminar “From Dialogue to Partnership. Security in the Mediterranean and NATO: Future Prospects” Rome, Italian Parliament 30 Sept. 2002

Speech by Senator Giovanni Lorenzo Forcieri President of the Italian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly I would like to open this seminar by greeting the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and the Deputy Speaker of the Senate, the Secretary-General of NATO, Lord Robertson, the Minister of Defence, the members of the Atlantic Council, the Ambassadors of the countries belonging to the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue, and all the parliamentarians, academics, members of the military and the diplomatic service who have honoured us today with their presence here. (I can also see former President Cossiga, whom I wish to greet with particular affection and esteem). The Italian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has seen fit to devote its second seminar to security in the Mediterranean. The purpose is to focus on the way in which the Atlantic Alliance can be useful in helping to strengthen and improve conditions that guarantee security in the Mediterranean region, and possible future prospects for further developing and enhancing the co-operation that already exists between the Alliance and the countries belonging to the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue initiative (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia). We trust that this seminar will provide an opportunity to launch the idea of a possible future in which there will be a marked improvement in the quality of relations between NATO and the Mediterranean countries. Hence the theme of the seminar, "From Dialogue to Partnership": it is a path that we believe to be practicable, provided that we move forward by carefully combining realism and a spirit of enterprise, creative imagination and pragmatism. Following the events of 11th September the issue of security has become a top priority on the agenda of every government, in the debates in every parliament, and in the consciousness of world public opinion. There is no doubt that the factors of instability in the Mediterranean area have a direct bearing on world stability. I would just like to mention the main ones: regional crises in the Balkans, conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the emergence of terrorist groups driven by fundamentalism, and the heightened threat of terrorism in the West. And, above all, the worsening Israeli-Palestinian situation, for which the peace process must be stepped up, and immediately. For if the process is too gradual it will leave too wide a margin which extremists, and those who want to see it fail, will exploit. The international community must immediately seize the opportunity and the positive signals that have been coming out of that region in the past few hours. We decided to convene this seminar with the decisive contribution of the NATO Information and Press Office and the Institute of International Affairs, which I would like to thank, because as Italians we have always been convinced that the Mediterranean is an area of strategic importance, not only for the security of the countries lying around it but for the whole of the Euro-Atlantic community, and ultimately for global stability. This awareness has now become widespread, and the increasingly more pressing question we are being asked is how we can reconcile balanced economic and social development in the Mediterranean with respect for the different cultural and social and religious identities, while clearly acknowledging that everything depends on reaching a genuine and lasting peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a fascinating issue, an intellectual challenge, and a challenge to our goodwill which the Italian delegation wanted to take up in order to try to offer a contribution, however small, the bounds of our possibilities and abilities. Can NATO today to-day help to improve stability in the Mediterranean? Above all, what can it do in order to be perceived in a positive light, not only by the governments but above all by public opinion in the southern Mediterranean countries as an Atlantic defensive military organisation that has survived the Cold War? In order to answer these questions in the affirmative we must rely on NATO's capacity to adapt and change, as it has demonstrated it over the past ten years. It is, I believe, patent today that the Atlantic Alliance, with the new strategic concept adopted in Washington and above all with its eastward enlargement, has toned down its features as a military defence Alliance, but it has expanded its functions as a Euro-Atlantic collective security organisation. This transformation and this shift, which has been criticised by some and applauded by others, is a reality, and no one denies that it is at the centre of the debate within the Alliance in addition to the issues of defence in the strict sense of the term. And its interest in security in the broad sense, including what is now defined as soft security, is growing all the time. We should not be concerned, then, about defining what the Alliance is or is going to become. I think we should welcome NATO's acquisition of better and greater capacities in the field of security, because it meets a present demand, and it is one response to the challenges that the international strategic context is throwing down today. It is not the only response, because there is no one single response, but it is one of the possible responses. It is therefore in the area of soft security that NATO can begin offering the countries in the Mediterranean the opportunities the need for ever more intense and fruitful co-operation. And by intensifying the Dialogue southwards, NATO would have an even more original and more revolutionary opportunity than its policy for eastwards enlargement, and would make the Alliance come to terms with more complex areas than Europe alone. NATO's attention shown towards the southern shore of the Mediterranean must in no way be construed as an attempt to acquire a new legitimacy, in the search for a new enemy - Islam - following the collapse of world Communism. It is not in need of new enemies, but of new friends and partners, with which to create a wide-ranging system of security against our enemies: and primarily that means international terrorism. NATO has built up a huge patrimony of know-how, exchanges, alliances, and is therefore a solid Alliance which enables us to continue reasoning in terms of partnership, protection, and the enhancement of the transatlantic relationship, and of multilateralism, which I personally believe is something that we can never renounce, particularly at the present time. What is important, then, is for NATO to adopt an ever more inclusive approach, stepping up dialogue - at least as a future prospect - with ever wider areas of the Mediterranean, and to continue working in a complementary role with all the other international initiatives in progress in the region. But it is clear that the general situation in the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean is by no means easy. We all know the imbalance in the social economic, military and institutional indicators, mass migration and, above all - and I would like to repeat this once again - the short-circuit which the worsening situation in the Middle East is provoking with the consequent stalling of many regional initiatives (I am thinking in particular of the Barcelona process), which are sometimes based on an over-assertive and over-demanding attitude on the part of the European countries. Despite the differences and the difficulties that exist in the Mediterranean region, which are much greater and deeply ingrained than anything NATO has faced in the process of integration between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, I am by no means a Utopian when I look to the South with confidence and with optimism. I know that in order to make progress we should never be afraid to search out new paths, to reach out for new dialogue, and in our discussions we must also seek out the things that unite rather than divide us. Great strides, despite the appearance of only being small steps, can be made in this direction. And the experts who are present here today will be able to illustrate to us the political and technical conditions for making this progress possible. We are aware of the opportunities offered by parliamentary diplomacy; it represents a new frontier of dialogue, a flexible and modern instrument for envisaging and testing new paths and fresh ideas, to establish contact with leaders of all the political forces, both in government and in opposition, in different countries, and with their intellectuals, and their governing classes; and it has proven its effectiveness precisely in situations where relations between states and governments are the most fraught. We wanted this capacity to reach out and dialogue - the main feature of Politics - to be placed at the service and at the disposal of a much wider objective. Today, virtually all the members of the Atlantic Council are present with us with the Ambassadors of the countries belonging to the Mediterranean Dialogue, together with academics, parliamentarians and scholars from all these countries. We want to trigger a debate. We want to throw a stone in the pond; we want to thrash out and test new ideas and concepts, and discuss them. Our objective will be fully attained if, when we end our work today, we are able to say that we have made progress in the direction intended: namely, if we have strengthened the Mediterranean Dialogue and made it more closely resemble the Partnership. And it would be an enormous success if the forthcoming Prague Summit were to take up this idea and work on it. But even if this meeting merely helps us to understand the motives and the reasons that make this progress difficult, while we remain committed to persevering along this path, we shall still be able to claim that it has been a great success.