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| Updated: 10-Jan-2003 | NATO Speeches |
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NATO HQ 10 Jan. 2003 Audio file |
Welcoming Speech by
NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson
I welcome you to this New Year reception, when we are polite to each other, especially because a New Year is starting. But it's always useful to speak to the assembled press corps who cover NATO affairs, because we have a very transparent approach to the press and to what we do here. We try to tell people, as much as possible, about what's going on. Whether they report it, of course, is another matter entirely, but we welcome your interest and I hope that you appreciate the services that we make available to you, both at the headquarters and at ministerials and, of course, summit meetings as well. They are designed to help you report what we believe is good news about NATO and the changes at NATO.
And if you feel that we could do more or should do more, then I hope you’ll let us know because our interest is getting out to your readers, as much of what we do as possible. I start this New Year in a very optimistic mood. I remember coming to the reception here last year and after I fought off the batallions of journalists from Slovakia and Slovenia and from Romania, who only had one question to ask, but knew about 50 ways of putting that one question. I remember we were in an atmosphere where people were writing great articles about: Is NATO relevant? Has NATO got a future? Some of them were almost obituaries for NATO at that time.
And yet, what was to happen during the year was to completely contradict
those who phrophesized doom. Our Balkans operations, we managed them effectively
and we’ve seen a transition in Kosovo and in Bosnia and in the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ( We saw the creation of the NATO - Russia Council, a quite unique body, which, frankly, I don’t think has had the coverage that it deserved. It changed history in a dramatic and a very fundamental way and none of us who sat in that room in Rome in May will forget the geography, the historical geography of the table, with the President of the United States of America, the President of Russia, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Ministers of Iceland and tiny Luxembourg, all sitting around one table with the Secretary General of NATO chairing the meeting.
I don’t think many people, even a few years ago, nevermind 50 years ago would ever have conceived of that possibility. And yet, we made a reality of it, almost commonplace. Now dozens of working groups in this headquarters are beavering away on a whole program of very substantial NATO - Russia issues of co-operation. And then of course, in the last few days of last year, we completed the great jigsaw people of European Defence. And although hardly anybody understands the intricacies of the linkages between NATO and the European Union, that was a real cause for celebration, because we can now move on with the great historic project of linking NATO and the EU. I missed the last bits of that theatre, that night when the North Atlantic Council was meeting on the Friday night, because I had a pre-arranged meeting in Edinburgh, a speech I was giving about NATO - Russia relations as it happened. And I got the word that agreement had been reached on this package, that would lead to the completion of what we knew as Berlin Plus. And I must say, having lived with it for four years, from Saint Malo right through to the end of last year, I was quite euphoric and I bounced back into the room, having taken the call, to try to explain to people why I was so euphoric. The rest of the company didn't know what I was talking about, including a gentlemen who had published a book explaining the intricacies of the Maastricht Treaty some five years ago. So I thought: We have an education job to do here. And I know some of you who cover the European Union may well share the confusion of everybody else as well. But it was a very, very significant moment and opened the door to the European Union and NATO working together on a whole series of projects, political and military which, I think, will make a huge difference to the way in which security is handled in the Euro-Atlantic area. Then, of course, came Prague. And Prague, I believe, set the seal on the new NATO. So much of the work that we’ve been doing in here in a whole series of areas came to fruition at Prague. And I’m quite happy to admit that I used Prague as the anvil to hammer a number of difficult decisions out of the 19 nations who make up NATO at the present moment. And we did get huge progress in terms of enlargement, a robust enlargement of seven new nations invited to join the alliance and a very short time table for them to come in and become full members of the alliance. On the capabilities front, the NATO response force, a new cutting-edge
military capability for the kind of threats we’ll face in the future,
the new streamlining of the command structure of NATO, more progress on
that in six months that was achieved in the previous six years in streamlining
NATO. So it is a transformed NATO that you’re covering now and the evolution is something that I hope you’ll report and report in detail. We’re back in business, real business of the covenant, and new and fresh scents for the future. We have a political dimension that embraces Russia, the Partnership for Peace, especially, in the areas very distant from Brussels, the Mediterranean dialogue, which has been re-invigorated. The President of Algeria was one of my first visitors to come to NATO headquarters after Prague and his gift of a rug, I can tell you, has centre stage in the private office suite upstairs, in a way symbolising the fact that our reach, our influence, our role is now much more than it was ever conceived of being in the past. So you’re welcome here today for drink and some food and I hope, also, some food for thought, because we intend to give you a lot of that during the coming year. It’s not going to be unexciting. As you already know, I haven’t mentioned one word which I dare say you’re going to try to extract from me as I go around the room, although that’s all supposed to be off the record and you know these two great trustworthy comments, the famous joke about what comments do you distrust most. The first one is: My check is in the post. The second one is: I will respect you even more in the morning, darling. (LAUGHTER) And the third one always was: I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. (LAUGHTER) But of course, you know and I know that there is a fourth one: I am a journalist and you can trust me. (LAUGHTER) And of course, I do, implicitly. The one word I haven’t mentioned I dare say will become a very important word in here in future months. But at the moment, we all wait for the inspector’s reports and for the process of the United Nations to deliver a robust endorsement of the rule of law in the international community. The statement that was made on Iraq at Prague was a decision of the North Atlantic Council and I want to emphasize that. It was not a press statement. It was not a loose statement by 19 important individuals around the table. It was a decision taken by the North Atlantic Council and it is represents a very strong and robust commitment to supporting the United Nations and resolution 1441. So the year will evolve and they will be things that we cannot, at the moment, foresee, but we will be open with you, tell you what we’re doing and I hope that you’ll pass on that word to the people who rely on you to get the bulk of the information about this great alliance of 19 nations at the moment, but 26, 26 strong nations come May of 2004. Thank you very much for your attendance, for your coverage and I look forward to seeing you on many future occasions during 2003. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE) 
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