Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-048"
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"en.19991117.2.3-048"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint appearance here of both Javier Solana and Chris Patten is symbolic since they will enjoy joint success or, if they do not work together, joint failure. It is in our common interest that they succeed as this will also be our success and in this we must support them.
It is also an indication that the new troika is finally starting to work. If I have understood things correctly, the Finnish Council Presidency has again sent the old troika to Russia. The new troika to which you both belong should also, in future, take on representation abroad.
Since 1990 and the collapse of bloc confrontation, it has once again become possible to carry out conventional wars at regional level in Europe, which in turn facilitate the old classic struggle between ethnic groups, border disputes and the like, the old circle of violence. We Europeans have not yet found an answer to this, as the former Yugoslavia shows. The efforts which are now being made in the common security and defence initiative are an attempt to find the European answer, specifically in terms of prevention. However, prevention, Mr Sakellariou, only works if it is backed by a credible military force. For this reason, the two must be tied together. Only then can prevention be genuinely implemented and I hope that it will work accordingly.
I think that, through joint efforts, it will be possible to achieve synergetic effects in gathering troops to combat crises with the aim of bringing about a common armaments agency. We all know about the meagreness of the budgets and I think that with these synergetic effects the aim can be achieved. We should not do this with independent expensive structures but, as far as possible, in accordance with the NATO Resolution adopted at Berlin in 1996, in tandem with NATO and with the NATO structures. This seems to me to be an important route because it strengthens transatlantic ties whilst at the same time creating our own European capability where it is needed.
In my estimation, this would also mean that we will be able to carry out our duties jointly or separately, but not against our traditional partners. The European Union, with its common currency, common internal market and common legal system, has a common interest in also implementing a credible common security and defence policy.
However, we must also realise that this picture cannot exist indefinitely in areas where there are varying degrees of security. For this reason, at the Intergovernmental Conference, we should seek to make article 5 of the WEU Treaty a protocol of the EU Treaty to which each state can accede and, specifically, on the basis of an independent sovereign resolution. This means that none of the neutral or non-allied states would be compelled to accede. However, everything would then fall under the umbrella of credibility and common interests and we could further develop matters on this basis such that the appointment of Mr Solana as Secretary-General of the West European Union and the involvement of that Union could be fully effected without us needing to make allowance for article 5."@en1
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