At NATO Annual Conference Brussels 14 April 2005

How can we generate parliamentary support for NATO's transformation? Remarks by Josef Banás, Member of Parliament, National Council of the Slovak Republic Transforming NATO – A Political and Military Challenge Thank you very much, dear Mr. Secretary General, Mr. Giambastiani, Ministers, Excellencies, friends. It's a great honour to me to speak to you on behalf of not only Parliamentary Assembly of NATO where I was elected as vice president last year, but also on behalf of the Slovak Parliament. To be honest, I was always used to listening to some of you, and now it's for the first time you are listening to me. It's great impression. Et je dois dire que c'est un grand honneur pour moi d'être a la même table avec M. Loïc Bouvard, avec le doyen de l'Assemblée parlementaire. Difference being not a military, even I served in Czechoslovak army, being more politician and even a playwright, I'm always in my speeches more emotional. I'm always using more examples and also this time I want to say some few words, more to impression, to other perception of NATO in my country because the topic is transformation, but I think if you want to get some support for transformation, first of all we have to have support for NATO as itself. And to understand better my feelings and feelings of my countrymen, what I mean, we could generalize it for all new transition countries, let me be allowed to say a short story which happened maybe it's the mid-eighties. I'm coming from Bratislava. Bratislava is, I think, the only capital in Europe which lies at the border of three countries, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary. And we had also our Berlin wall in Bratislava. This famous Iron Curtain. Mr. Secretary General remember when you visit Bratislava, I show you this former border from the castle. One day a friend of mine, he was a teacher, he came to visit me and he came with his son. The guy was some six, seven years old, and we walked around these fences and there were these watch towers. And suddenly the guy looked at one of these watch towers and there were soldiers, sitting with guns. And the guy ask his father, who are these soldiers? And the father said, as a brave teacher, of course, from the old socialist time, you know, these are our Czechoslovak soldiers. What are they doing there? They are protecting us against our imperialistic enemy. Suddenly the guy looked at the soldier and asked, but why is the soldier turned to us? You know, just to illustrate... think about it, just to illustrate, we grew up in a situation where, thanks God, nowadays these fences are away, but some of them still remain in our brains. And what we have to transform, first of all, in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and other transferring(?) countries, is to transform our brain. Even though the topic of our discussion is parliamentary support for NATO's transformation, I would like for the world to point out that the fact that only when the majority of the population is permanently convinced of the meaningfulness of our membership in NATO, can we think about winning their support for NATO's transformation, or about increasing the defence expenditures. And that's it's not so easy, why? Because the citizens of our country, after more than 40 years of political apathy, enjoy political involvement, especially when their opinions are in the opposition to the government. Just the feeling one gets when opposing the government is exciting after years of unconditional conformity. It is also necessary to say the citizens of Slovakia, and also Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, do not perceive the issue of security as an immediate threat. Our country doesn't have immediate personal experience with terrorism, or other threats to security. Therefore, we perceive it as a given, something taken for granted, or in the best case, something that someone will guarantee for us. In this case, that someone is NATO. We have gotten used to the fact that someone powerful always guarantees our security. Before it was Moscow. Now it's Brussels. But we somehow intuitively feel that it is rather Washington. This approach denotes a strange schizophrenia in our citizens. On one hand... on the one hand we do not like protectors. While on the other hand we like to rely on them. The possible explanation for this may be that this is because our countries unlearned how to rely on themself during the 40 years of communist totalitarianism. And if you add the years of the occupation by Nazi Germany, it total 50 years of life under political system which was never elected democratically, and which held values which we were never able to identify with. Today for the first time Slovakia is member of a security alliance which Slovakia has democratically chosen, and no which holds values which we can identify. But surprisingly still we need the politicians must explain to citizens that we belong to the group of more fortunate inhabitants of the world, and that is our moral duty to help the less fortunate ones. Citizens do not feel the need of solidarity in the form of deploying our soldiers on NATO, UN or EU missions because they do not feel a security risk. To win support for NATO in my country is also questionable for other reasons. One of them is our recent historical experience. As I mentioned already the generation of our grandparents was brought up in the spirit of NATO being an imperialistic enemy. The generation of parents, my generation, was disappointed by the inactivity of NATO during the August Soviet invasion of '68. We all hoped and looked to West that someone would come and help us. And the generation of children is disappointed with the United States which are perceived as the country of their dreams, but which also arrogantly refuses to grant us visas. The problem of winning support for understanding the role of NATO is also disturbed by the transatlantic tension which still injures(?) even despite the re-warming of relations following the visit of President Bush to Europe and to Slovakia. And it has to be said, quite frankly, that most citizens of Slovakia, but obviously in other European countries too, do not consider the philosophy of the Bush administration, the export of democracy, is to be the best. That is why the out-of-area actions are assessed very critically and over half of the citizens do not agree, or are not very happy with them. Here it is necessary to point out that serious risk for those political parties which supported the military action in Iraq or Serbia, which as a Slavic country is very sensitive in Slovakia. Naturally the opposition populistically takes advantage of the public's mood. All in all who wants war anyway? Therefore it is possible that the government parties which supported the deployment of our troops to Iraq will pay for this with the loss of votes in the next election. In Slovakia, for your information, 139 out of 150 Members of Parliament voted for accession to NATO, but only 84 for deployment of our troops to Iraq. I mean, there is some other phenomena among other citizens, but again, it could be generalized. Despite everything we were part of a system which we did not oppose enough, but thanks God, it finally fell. And somehow we feel to be guilty. That we were not more courageous, always some few of us had enough courage to undertake something against the official political regime. But coming to conclusion, coming back to NATO, I have the impression that after tectonic changes, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the advent of terrorism, the question of strengthening the cohesion of NATO is the only world-wide alliance with democracy circulating through its veins is absolutely topical. The Atlantic Ocean should become the Inter-Atlantic Sea. Let us not reproach each other, Europe and U.S.A., for what we do not know about each other, but let us speak about what we do know and what we should know. An example, Slovaks are always very angry when Americans, but some Europeans too, confuse us for Slovenians. When I asked... but when I ask some fellow countrymen if they knew what the difference between the Washington, D.C. and the state Washington no one knew. So maybe it would be helpful if American congressmen, or Member of Parliaments of the other NATO members states visited us--I mean, the new member states--and meet more of the citizens. The vast majority of Slovaks have never seen a live American, French or German Member of Parliament. I mean, the same in Hungary, Poland and other countries. And when the Member of Parliament drinks a glass of good wine with our citizens he or she will do more for the parliamentary support of NATO than any seminar or workshop could do. I can assure you we had in last year in spring in Bratislava Parliament the Assembly of NATO, here are some colleagues, they took part, and the best meetings were carried out in pubs of Bratislava with citizens and with people just coming along. Ladies and gentlemen, there are more and more topic I could speak, but let me conclude with the term of transformation. I can assure you transformation is the most frequented word in Slovakia. I think we are transforming everything what's possible to transform, beginning with taxis, with health care, with social, with pension reform. So we are carrying out very severe reforms in my country. I guess more of you know that Slovakia has been called, in the meantime, a kind of tiger of middle Europe, thanks God, so we are not afraid of any transformation. And we will go through also the transformation...