Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-05-Speech-2-040"
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"en.20000905.3.2-040"2
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". – I very much welcome this opportunity to speak to the European Parliament just a couple of days after the informal meeting of foreign ministers in Evian, at which there was a serious discussion on the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Union's external activities and the budgetary consequences, the first time to my knowledge that such a discussion has taken place.
I am determined that the Commission should make a coherent contribution to the external relations agenda. It is very easy in the external field, perhaps more than any other, to make grandiloquent statements about Great Issues such as peace in the Middle East, a stable and productive relationship with Russia, international development.
But if these are to be transformed from aspiration into reality, we have to pull our collective European weight. What does that mean in practice for the Commission? Firstly it means better coordination between Commissioners and Directorates-General encouraging a habit of working together. I think we are starting to improve things. I chair the group of RELEX Commissioners which meets regularly both formally and informally. We try to frame a single agenda to discuss the impact of what we are doing on other Commissioners' areas of responsibility. I think it is fair to say that this has so far been successful and that we intend to continue in this spirit. We have managed to avoid the turf wars which I am told occasionally disfigured the harmony of previous Commissions. Secondly, we are feeling our way towards a new and more productive working relationship with the Council and I hope with the European Parliament.
It was evident at Evian with ministers this weekend. Apart from the detailed foreign policy issues on our agenda like the situation in the Middle East, we were looking at how we decide our overall annual priorities in external relations and how we apportion the budget. As I said before, when I made a presentation to the Council on the budget and on our priorities in May it was the first time this had ever happened. Earlier this year, as well as that presentation to foreign ministers, I hope that I gave the European Parliament exactly the same candid presentation on our external relations budget. In the past commitments have simply built up from one budget exercise to the next, with almost no effort to pull things together into a coherent whole. We are now trying to create a more rational system in which we can all have a proper political discussion early in the process on what our priorities should actually be. That is important in the Council and it is important in the Parliament because you are the budgetary authority. We cannot spend more than you allow us to but in that case you should not ask us to do more than is possible and criticise us when we have to make judgments about priorities. However, I think we are in a much better position to make those judgments with political guidance from the Council and Parliament.
Thirdly, I am working with Javier Solana to create sensible structures and the right division of responsibilities between the Commission and the High Representative for the CFSP. The institutional relationship between the Commission and the High Representative is evolving, as is the precise role of the European Parliament in the CFSP. But we have in this last year managed to develop a strong and sensible partnership and I think we can honestly claim that, whatever the difficulties, it is starting to make a difference, for instance, in the Balkans where the challenge to the credibility of Europe's foreign policy remains formidable.
Fourthly I am working to respond to new demands on the Commission arising from the new security agenda. We have set up a new crisis management unit to help pull together the Commission's contribution in that area, but I also want to adapt our structures so that we can have a greater input into aspects of external relations where traditional bilateral diplomacy has been less effective and where the Commission has particular expertise which it should be able to deploy more effectively. One example is conflict prevention, which may involve issues that are not part of the normal diplomatic agenda. Other examples are climate change, control of drug-trafficking, control of the other death industries, the creation of new civil structures including independent media and so on. These are the sort of issues on which I want to see the Commission contributing its experience and resources. In the discussions we had in the G8 foreign ministers' meetings I was struck by the extent to which the foreign and security policy agenda is changing and bringing together disparate issues in which the Community has almost unique competence, for example in the environmental field.
We discussed yesterday Mr Galeote's excellent report on our external services and the importance of enhancing the effectiveness of what the European Union does around the world. There was a lot of discussion about better coordination, better coordination between Member States and all the institutions of the European Union, which I know is a serious priority of the French presidency and one which I totally share.
We have perhaps talked more openly about these issues in the last few months than ever before but now we have to put our rhetoric into practice and discharge our responsibilities.
I want to congratulate the French Presidency without reservation on the priority that they have given to this extremely important practical issue. I want to respond to the motion for a resolution, not least since I suspect that in it are the bones of the discussion that we will be having between the Union's institutions on CFSP over the coming years.
Just before the summer break, as some Members may have read in the newspapers, we discussed in the Commission the demands, the constraints and priorities of the European Union's external relations, our understanding of what should be the Commission's external role and some of the problems we encounter in performing it. Any such discussion should of course begin with the Treaty. One of the five objectives of the European Union, as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty, is that it should assert its identity on the international scene. That objective reflects a number of things. It reflects first of all the European Union's political interests, including a growing role in the area of security, which the President-in-Office referred to in his interesting remarks. It reflects our economic interests, trade and the external dimension of the single market, including our agricultural policy. The Euro would also come under this heading. It reflects our responsibilities for external assistance which have grown exponentially in recent years.
The European Union and its Member States now provide 55% of total international aid and two thirds of global non-refundable aid. It reflects our defensive external interests, issues such as drug trafficking, nuclear safety issues, environmental concerns and migration and last but not least relations with our near neighbours, including the whole process of enlargement, which in my view is the most important and challenging issue facing this generation of European politicians. It is worth remembering that less than 20 years ago relations with Greece, Spain and Portugal were external affairs for the European Community as it then was.
Our prime task in the European Union's external relations is surely the projection of stability, both in our immediate neighbourhood and beyond. A more stable neighbourhood and a more stable world guarantee a more stable European Union. The skills that the European Union has brought to its own development are skills which offer an example and a model elsewhere in the world. We need to be more imaginative in drawing on our experience and using it beyond our shores.
In discussing how the European Commission can concentrate on this task, I want to be clear about the limits of our role. Foreign policy is and will remain fundamentally a matter for national governments, in other words for Member States. There are 15 foreign ministers in the European Union today and there will be 15 for the foreseeable future. But it is equally important that the Member States should acknowledge what you in European Parliament and those working on the CFSP have long understood: that mere intergovernmentalism can be a recipe for weakness and mediocrity, for a European foreign policy of the lowest-common denominator. That is why the Union chose to move on from political cooperation, why the Treaty of Amsterdam created the new high representative for CFSP and why there is an important role for the Commission and for the European Parliament in trying to make a Common – I stress common not single – Foreign and Security Policy more effective.
The new structures, procedures and instruments of CFSP recognise the need to harness the strengths of the European Community in the service of European foreign policy. It would be absurd to divorce European foreign policy from the institutions which have been given responsibility for most of the instruments for its accomplishment, for external trade, external assistance, many of the external aspects of justice and home affairs and so on. That is why the Commission participates fully in the decision-making process in the Council, that is why we have a shared right of initiative – not a sole but a shared right of initiative – in these issues.
There needs to be a sensible and sensitive partnership in the external field between the institutions of the Union, including the European Parliament, and its Member States. We should be engaged in a common effort to make sure that world's largest trading group also makes its presence felt politically. We have a real contribution to make and we must not be afraid to make it.
Another point I want to emphasise is that the Commission is not seeking new powers or a new role, but we do want to be able to exercise the powers we already have under the Treaty more effectively. I have every sympathy for European Parliament's desire to do exactly the same."@en1
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