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| Updated: 7 May 1999 | Speeches |
At the Arthur |
Secretary General's SpeechMrs. Springer, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an honour and a pleasure to address this distinguished group of Arthur F. Burns alumni. The Arthur F. Burns programme is one of those endeavours that put our transatlantic community to life. The strongest ties across the Atlantic are the ties of personal friendship. As a student and scholar I spent several years in the United States. Living and working in another country changes one's perspective on many things. Different perspectives and common values are what make our Atlantic community so dynamic and strong. The world has changed a lot since I was a student. Globalisation has brought enormous benfits: economic, environmental, cultural. It also means that, more than ever, countries depend on each other for their stability and prosperity. NATO has changed too. The NATO that emerged from the Washington Summit is ready for the future. From Washington we sent a clear signal. A signal that Europe's new security architecture is taking shape, that the transatlantic relationship remains at the heart of this project, and that the values which are at the core of our transatlantic Alliance are as valid as ever. It is these values which will ultimately prevail in the Kosovo crisis. Of that I am certain. Why? Because there is a community of democratic countries, a community of decent people out there - a community that does not tolerate the carnage in its midst, a community to which, we earnestly hope, a peaceful, stable Balkans will eventually belong as well. In Washington Kosovo occupied our hearts and minds. But the Summit did not turn into the "war council" some had predicted. Instead, it became an impressive demonstration of transatlantic solidarity and unity of purpose. All Allies - old and new - stood together. And our Partner countries - nations with most diverse cultures, religions and security traditions - supported us. This almost universal support is also reflected in the pronouncements of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the statements by the leaders of the European Union and the G-8. It is remarkable and it is heartening. This clear sense of purpose represents the true nature of the transatlantic community founded 50 years ago. This community has always stood for much more than mutual protection. It stood for a practical model of how democratic nations should cooperate. And it stood for a distinct vision of how a unifying Europe could escape its troubled past for good. The fact that NATO's 50th Anniversary coincides with the launching of a European common currency testifies to the power of this vision. Today, not only has Europe evolved towards ever-closer union, but America and Europe have become a tightly-knit community, with a degree of cooperation and interdependence that exists nowhere else on this globe. The United States and Europe enjoy the strongest economic relationship in the world. Our combined annual trade and investment totals $2 trillion. Commerce and trade support over 14 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. We thus have a huge stake in each other's prosperity - and in creating the right environment for maintaining and reinforcing this prosperity. This Atlantic community must now be extended and reformed. We must extend it, because the vision of Truman and Acheson and of Adenauer and Monet could only become a reality in Europe's Western half. Today, the nations in Europe's East have a voice of their own and they want to become a full part of this unique project. We must also extend it, because the tragedies happening in Europe's Southeast remind us that there are parts of this continent that have not yet made the transition towards democracy and pluralism. These regions, too, need our attention - they, too, need political stability, and sound economic perspectives. But we also need to reform our Atlantic community, because this community faces new challenges - challenges that are hardly less demanding than those of 50 years ago; challenges that require a new sharing of responsibilities between Europe and North America: helping Russia's transformation, managing regional crises, re-building the Balkans, coping with the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This requires us to go beyond transatlantic "business-as-usual". The crisis in Kosovo underlines the urgency and the importance of this undertaking. Europe's Security and Defence Identity is a case in point. The ongoing tragedy on our doorstep keeps reminding us of the need for a stronger Europe. The aim is a rebalanced atlantic partnership. Not less America, rather more Europe. At the Summit we took a major step in that direction. We created a more flexible NATO; a NATO that allows the European Allies to play a bigger role; a NATO with a new command structure that facilitates European-led coalitions whenever a European response seems more appropriate. In short, it is a NATO in which the European Allies will increasingly play a security role commensurate with their economic strength. So much for the theory. But what about the practice? After all, it is well known that the majority of the aircraft in our Kosovo air campaign are American. And yet I would maintain that the Kosovo crisis could indeed become a catalyst for this stronger European role we all seek. Once a peace implementation mission is set up and reconstruction starts, this stronger European role will become visible very quickly. Already, Germany and other Allies are playing a vital role in supporting the work of humanitarian organizations in Macedonia and Albania. I will not even try to address every aspect of the Kosovo crisis. I suspect in any case that you may want to return to this topic later in your questions. At this stage, let me just emphasise three points which to me are absolutely fundamental: First, we should remind ourselves time and again that the Alliance resorted to force only as the last available means to stop the intensifying ethnic cleansing campaign by President Milosevic and his henchmen. There will be no spoils of war for NATO: no territory, no sphere of influence, no oil, no trade routes. But when the dust settles we will be able to say, we did what we had to do to uphold human dignity in the face of barbarism. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently put it: "No government has the right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the human rights or fundamental freedoms of its peoples." I could not agree more. Second, there is no alternative to a political solution to this crisis. Knowing this, we exhausted every avenue of diplomacy before the first bomb was released. But there is - for the time being - equally no alternative to the dual approach of diplomacy backed by military strikes. While the air campaign takes its course, we continue to explore any promising lead in search for a settlement. As Presidency of the European Union and chairman of the G-8 Germany has spearheaded important initiatives in this regard. Yesterday, Foreign Minister Fischer chaired a successful meeting of the G-8 foreign ministers in Bonn. I welcome in particular the constructive role Russia is playing. However, the actions of Milosevic continue to defy any prospect for peace, they defy reason and humanity. And, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Third, our primary goal must be the safe return of the refugees and displaced persons to their houses in Kosovo. Their fate is the ultimate measure of our success since it is on their behalf that NATO intervened. The other steps flow from there: the end to violence; the withdrawal of military, police and para-military forces; the stationing of an effective - I repeat: effective - international military presence and agreement on a political framework. Ethnic cleansing must be reversed. There can be no compromise in that regard. Anything less would mean that the evil unleashed by Milosevic had carried the day. At the end of a bloody century and with a new millenium before us, I could not conceive of that. Ladies and Gentlemen, Allow me to end my brief remarks with a few words on the media. Since we took action in Kosovo, our media policy has been faced with many challenges and also, inevitably, with some criticism. It has been said that in war, truth is the first casualty. That maybe so for the media policy of an isolated dictatorship, but not for NATO. We are committed to openness since we are an alliance of open societies. We have admitted mistakes where they occurred and we have expressed our sincere regrets whenever human life was lost as a consequence. There must be - and there is - a moral difference between violence applied willfully to kill, maim and oppress and the reluctant and discriminate use of force designed to stop a murderer in his tracks. Christiane Amanpour, one of the foremost and experienced CNN reporters, put this very succinctly: "There is no moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim. Objectivity means trying to give all sides a hearing. It does not mean treating all sides as equal." Ladies and Gentlemen, Today, the Atlantic community stands as a unique community of shared values and interests. Its first 50 years, Act One, were characterised by the Cold War, and then by the struggle to wind it down peacefully. This has largely been achieved. The Washington Summit raised the curtain to the Second Act of our transatlantic community, a mature transatlantic partnership that reaches out across the old faultlines of confrontation. Today I can say with confidence: the Alliance is ready to face the 21st century.
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