NATO HQ 6 Oct. 1999

Secretary General Javier Solana's Remarks to the Press on His Last Day 6 Oct. 1999 Jamie Shea: Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's good to see you all here. It reminds me of previous exciting times in the history of the Alliance. So, good afternoon to you all. Over the last four years it's been my privilege to introduce Javier Solana on, I imagine, hundreds of occasions at the beginning of a press conference, and now it's also my sadness to have to do it for the last time. Secretary General, the word is with you. Secretary General: Thank you. Thank you very much, Jamie. Thank you very much all of you for being here today. As you know very well, my term in office in the Alliance is coming to an end. I had a very moving experience this morning, addressing the North Atlantic Council for the last time in this capacity, and I told them what I feel, and I would like to convey to you. For me it has been four very impressive years; years that will be very difficult to forget, years that will make a tremendous impact on my own political life and my personal life. Let me tell you that I arrived here in late December 1995 and I remember that the first thing I had to do was to pick up the telephone for a phone call from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Boutros Ghali, and at that time he made the transfer of authority to the forces that were deployed in Bosnia - UNPROFOR - to IFOR at that time. So the first day my first obligation was to help deploy 60,000 soldiers into the first military operation of NATO in a peacekeeping formation. Today is the last day and I have to tell you that I have also very good news to tell you. The good news is that the parliament of Ireland approved today for Ireland to be part of PfP. It was the only country that was not a member of the PfP and today this is the present they gave to me, the day I leave! What has happened inbetween? Inbetween that day we started deploying forces in Bosnia to today, a day on which Ireland applies to be part of PfP and the parliament of that country approves it? A lot of important things. And a lot of important things for the security of our continent, for the security of Europe. Remember in this period of time NATO has taken new missions -Bosnia and Kosovo are good examples, has taken new members - I started chairing a Council of 16 members and I leave with a Council of 19 members. We have reconstructed an institutional relationship with Russia which to my mind has been one of the most important achievements of this period of time. We have also a specific relationship with Ukraine, we created a body - the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council - that meets regularly with more than 40 countries around the table of the Secretary General. In this period of time, we had two summits: the Summit of Madrid and the Summit of Washington, at which an important document was approved - the Strategic Concept. Therefore it has been a splendid time from the point of view of the adaptation of this Alliance to the challenges of the next century and very important as I said to me personally. I would like to say that this has been a collective effort. This has been an effort of 16 countries at the beginning, 19 countries at the end and I would like to pay tribute to the governments of those countries who collectively have done what I am trying to explain to you today. For me it has been a pleasure to work with those governments, those countries, and I have only found support and understanding from them and I want publicly to pay tribute to the governments of these 16 at the beginning and 19 countries at the end. As you know, I am going to continue working on the same agenda, the agenda of the security of Europe, will continue to be one of my main concerns as I move on to the European Union to take the job of High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy. The experience I have learned here will be without a doubt of great importance for me as I develop the European Defence and Security Identity, looking towards the 21st century. I would like to thank also the meetings I have had already with my successor, with Lord Robertson, who without any doubt will be a splendid Secretary General of this organisation at the moment he is taking office at the end of the 20th century, beginning of the 21st century. He has very profound experience in defence, military and political affairs. He started a very important reform of the armed forces of his own country, so you are going to have, and the Alliance is going to have, a splendid Secretary General for the coming years. But what I would like to say to you is not this type of thing that you know already. I haven't uncovered any secret in the words I have just said. I would like to take advantage of this moment to say a word to you, to the people who are in this room, to the journalists who have accompanied me in this long period of time, with moments of great difficulty and the only word I can convey to you is thank you, thank you very much for your understanding, thank you very much for your comprehension of some of the questions that have come along these complicated but also fantastic years and thank you very much for being here today at this very last moment accompanying me. I can tell you honestly without flattering you that for me, your presence, your articles, your opinions, your criticisms have been very, very important and I want once again to thank you. And if you allow me also to say a second word to you, it's a word that will be phrased like that my apologies if at any moment I have not been up to the job and in dealing with you, moments that you expected that I would break headlines on the first page of your newspapers or radio or television and I didn't do it, because I couldn't, but I thought you understood that and I want to apologise for the moments in which you were disappointed for the lack of information or the lack of news that was coming from this podium. I hope that now that the time is coming to an end that you understand that some moments it was impossible to go further and to say more than what I said. Thank you very much then for being here today, thank you very much for your cooperation. I would like to say a specific and a special word of thanks to Jamie, who has been with me for all these four years, who has been the face of NATO in very difficult moments, who has been the person who has dealt with you on an everyday basis. Thank you, Jamie, I am sure that the people here will remember your face forever, not only your face but your mind and your heart. And for you again the only thing I want to tell you is thank you very, very much. I will be seeing many of you in my new capacity across the street in some other building and I hope that we will maintain the same type of relationship as I move to my next job. I cannot give you anything so I would like to ask you to accompany me, after you have asked a couple of questions, for a drink in the NATO bar, that continues to be as you know a modest place. I'm sure that Lord Robertson will succeed in what I failed, which is to have a new building and new facilities for you so that you can be more comfortable. But in any case, thank you very much, my dear friends, and as General Joulwan liked to say "the mission continues". Christian Unteanu, Curentul: Vous avez parlé de votre futur job comme représentant. Comment voyez-vous l'ouverture de l'Union européenne vers les pays de l'est et si ça ne sera pas une relation délicate avec l'OTAN qui voit une ouverture étape par étape tandis que l'Union européenne veut ouvrir une fois pour les onze pays? Secretary General: Vous savez bien les décisions ont été prises au sein de l'Union pour ouvrir les portes comme l'OTAN l'a fait. J'espère qu' à la réunion du Conseil européen d'Helsinki des decisions seront prises, des décisions pour voir comment le processus d'ouverture de l'Union continue. Mais je suis sûr que la position de tous les membres de l'Union est la même, la même d'ouverture, d'essayer de finaliser le processus de reconstruction de l'Europe tout ensemble. Et c'est la philosophie que je veux et je crois que je l'ai montré bien ici à l'OTAN, parce que comme je viens de dire je suis très fier d'avoir contribué à l'ouverture de l'OTAN à trois nouveaux pays. Krzysztof Wojna, Polish Radio: Secretary General, what do you regard as the single most important moment of this four year term? Secretary General: For me personally or for the Alliance? Christophe: For you personally. Secretary General: Well, it's very difficult to pick out a moment, only a single moment. I've lived so many important moments, profound moments, that it's very difficult to pick one. Let me then pick two or three. The three or four moments that I remember very well, and they will mark, let me say that one is the month of May, when I visited the refugee camps in FYROM for the first time and I saw the people and the people saw me. The way they treated me, the sentiment I had that I had something to do deep down within the heart of those people and a few weeks' later, less than a month later, I saw some of these people in Pristina already, but in their homes, and that sentiment of having seen them in May in a camp of refugees and a month later at home, with hope in their faces and hearts, that for me will be very difficult to forget. Let me also say that from a political point of view, there are two moments which are very moving. One is the moment when in May 1997, I can remember, I think it was the 15th May, we finalized the agreement with Russia. That night with Mr. Primakov we finalized the Founding Act that was later on signed formally in Paris in the month of May of 1997. And the second moment, the moment the three new members came here and the flags of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were raised at the entrance of the Alliance. I have chosen these three, I could have chosen many more, but these three without a doubt form part of the most significant moments of my period here. Gyorgy Föris, Hungarian TV: Two weeks ago in Toronto, you said that you foresaw the possibility of a kind of formal link between NATO and the EU in the future. What kind of shape do you have in mind? Though you leave now as a Secretary General of NATO, but perhaps you will be quite a regular guest here as the Secretary General of the EU Council this time, as a participant in the NAC. Second, and if I may still consider the future, what kind of personal role can you see for yourself enforcing the ESDI? For example, can you envisage the possibility to be the Secretary General of the WEU as well? Secretary General: At Toronto I didn't discover any secret. What I said publicly - I'd remember answering a question I think - is that the European Union and NATO are going to have more formal relationships, but this is not a discovery made at Toronto. That is an agreement taken at the Cologne Summit, and it is in a document, the final document, communique of the Summit during the German Presidency. I don't remember the exact paragraph but it said that the tendency towards establishing a relationship between the European Union and NATO. As you know, today they don't exist formally as such but from Cologne on it will be. How it will be done, I don't think it will be very difficult to establish those relationships. My personal relationship already with Lord Robertson is probably proof of how easy that relationship may be and I hope will continue to be. Now, as you know, in Toronto some of the ministers said that they would like to invite me in my new capacity to the ministerial meetings in December and if they do finally invite me it would be a pleasure for me to come. And with that I have also answered to a certain extent your third question, how can we push together in this house and in the other house the European Security and Defence Identity. I think it has to be done in both houses but it has to be done also with cooperation between both houses. I think what we have to do is develop further the Washington Declaration, in particular paragraph 9 and paragraph 10, and the communique of Cologne that have a convergence point, that this is something that as you remember was agreed basically simultaneously in Washington and in Cologne, the two Summits. Q: Two questions please. You just looked back at four years - many things happened - do you have the feeling that NATO is now entering in calmer water, that the most turbulent period is behind NATO and the second question is do you think it will be more difficult to keep all the noses pointed in the same direction in your new job than it was in your present job? Secretary General: I would like to wish NATO a time of continuous adaptation to reality, to the new security environment, to a new security landscape, if you allow me to use that terminology. I would like to wish to my successor more relaxed times if possible, but this is not for me to say, it is history that creates the circumstances for tides more active or less active. In any case, the challenges for Lord Robertson are met and I am sure he will tackle those challenges with intelligence and common sense that he has proven already on many many occasions. Now the second part of your question is going to be more difficult. I don't know really, I don't know. What I can tell you is that I've learned quite a lot here. When I came here I already knew the European Union - don't forget that when I was chosen to come here, at that very moment I was President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union during the presidency of my own country - so I have a certain experience of handling that house. I've lived in this house, NATO, and it would be difficult to compare what would be more difficult. But in any case I will try to do it with the same sentiment of hard work. I don't know if I succeed always but I put a lot of energy into what I have to do, what they offer me to do and I will carry out my full responsibilities. Q: Secretary General, going back to Toronto if I may, there were peace demonstrators outside that conference as you well know, who were screaming terrible things at you and the other participants - "murderer", "baby killer". Given your political past, you were not always head of the world's greatest military alliance, you were in fact one time a dove, and so for a curious twist of fate you might conceivably have been on the other side of those barricades, so my question to you is: what was going through your mind at the time you heard those things being screamed at you, what feelings did you experience in your own heart and your own mind? Secretary General: Well, to tell you the truth, I thought how much the world has changed. If that meeting in Toronto had taken place ten years ago, the demonstrators instead of being 20 would have been many, many more. Therefore the change in the world has been very, very impotant. We have all evolved with the times. The situation of today is very different from the situation of yesterday and fortunately we are moving towards a better world, and that is to my mind the feeling I have now. When you see that so many countries are now looking at NATO as a magnetic pole. If you ask me another moment that I was very impressed was in Washington, when not only the members of the Alliance's 19 countries, but more than 40 countries around the same table, and I was the chairman of that meeting. It took a common decision about the conflict that was taking place at that point - 44 countries - this is really very, very impressive and it signifies, I think, the wish for the reconstruction of Europe under a certain kind of values, the values that we intend to defend and the values that I think we have defended. I'd like to say what I have said many times on this podium during the conflict: values is not enough to proclaim, it is necessary to be ready to defend them. And we have done that. Doris Kraus, Die Presse: Secretary General, you are going from a very powerful Alliance to an organisation which has been traditionally rather weak in will, capability and structures, to act in a foreign and security field What are going to be the first concrete steps you as the new Mr. CFSP want to take to change that? Secretary General: Well, I am not going to say whether they will be concrete, very clear steps. I will enter there, say hello to everybody, things of that nature, but you described the European Union's manner that I do not completely agree, but if I were to agree with you, my answer would be very simple, what I am going to try to do is change the description you just made. Rostyslav Demchuk, Dinau-Ukrinform: Secretary General, during the time you led NATO, relations between NATO and Ukraine improved very well so will it be on your agenda in your new job and how can you convince Mr. Prodi that Ukraine belongs to Europe, as you told that it's not an issue for Ukraine to be a member of the European Union? Secretary General: During this period of time, as you know, I have developed a very profound relationship with your country. That is not something you leave when you leave. I will take it with me to whatever I have to do in the next years, as in the next job I will have your country very close to me and I will do my best so that your country feels also comfortable in the structures of Europe. I don't mean by that be part of all the structures of Europe, but to feel comfortable in the relations - you are not part of NATO, but you have a very solid relationship with NATO, and you feel very comfortable with that. Thank you very much again