Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-14-Speech-3-150"
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"en.20010314.5.3-150"2
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"I note what the honourable gentleman says about the difficulty of getting to Strasbourg rather than Murmansk but I suppose one difference is that you cannot get to Strasbourg by nuclear submarine.
We still have a long way to go in improving our capacity to respond to crises in the short term. I would characterise the challenges we face under three headings. First, we have to react more quickly in crisis situations. The Commission is responding to this challenge. As Parliament knows we are engaged in a process of the reform of our external aid, which will mean that we are able to deliver assistance more rapidly and more efficiently across the whole range of Community aid programmes. Last month, on our initiative, the Council also adopted the regulation establishing a rapid-reaction mechanism.
Second, we must be able to deploy appropriate personnel in sufficient numbers, which is a real difficulty and a challenge for all of us. The rapid-reaction mechanism will give the Commission the possibility to do this and we will shortly start to negotiate framework contracts for this purpose with Member States, international organisations, NGOs and others. The major problem we face in this area, however, is the lack of suitably qualified and available personnel in the Member States. It is a problem faced not just by the Union but also by the UN, OSCE and other bodies engaged in international peace missions.
In the Commission's view, the best way to build up the Union's capacity in this field is by developing common recruitment standards and training programmes. The Commission is encouraging Member States to work together and with the UN and OSCE in this area, and is prepared to support such training programmes from Community funds.
Third and last, we have to develop more effective coordination. In the Commission's view, effective crisis management does not necessarily require major changes in existing decision-making procedures laid down in the Treaty. It requires the establishment of improved mechanisms for day-to-day coordination at headquarters level, in the field, and between the field and headquarters.
For its part, the Commission is engaged in reorganising itself internally in order to ensure better coordination of Community instruments in crisis situations. The Commission has established a conflict prevention and crisis management unit. Within that unit the Commission intends to establish a crisis management cell, which will coordinate various Community initiatives and provide a focal point for the Council situation centre. The crisis management cell should be operational by the summer.
Furthermore, in the context of the on-going debate in the Council on crisis management procedures, we have suggested to Council that the coordinating mechanism provided for in the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council should be relaunched. We are prepared to play our full part in the functioning of this mechanism.
Finally, with regard to both conflict prevention and civilian crisis management, the Commission intends to play, in full association with the work of the Council's Political and Security Committee, an active role in helping to take forward efforts in this area with the Council. We want to work with the High Representative, the policy unit and the Council secretariat in this spirit. We will work closely with Parliament, as well as the Council, on these issues. We will certainly keep Parliament fully informed. I very much hope that the communication which we bring forward in April will provide a focus for a debate which gives us the opportunity to bring together in a more creative and constructive way the responsibilities with which the Commission is charged, the responsibilities which we have agreed to share on a Europe-wide level. We can take initiatives in this field which are not available to others and if we do that constructively we will make a reality of the construction of a common foreign and security policy.
It is a great privilege for me to follow on from the Minister with whom I have spent a good deal of time on Troika visits in the last few weeks, I guess dealing with conflict prevention, and it is a pleasure to take part in the debate launched by the honourable gentleman. We last exchanged words in the same general direction in Washington a few days ago. He has raised an important debate. Perhaps I can be excused if I can take a few moments more than my allotted five to begin with and shave that off anything I say at the end of the debate. I will not come back at the end of the debate unless there are specific questions which people wish me to respond to, in which case of course I would be delighted to do so, not least in the Minister's absence in Murmansk.
As the Minister reminded us, the European Union is not new to the whole field of conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict reconstruction. We recognise that conflict prevention and crisis management are long-term undertakings. All of our regional cooperation programmes, CARDS, the ALURE Latin America programme, PHARE, MEDA, TACIS and so on, the Cotonou Agreement as well as our pre-accession strategies and stabilisation, association and cooperation agreements with third countries – all of them contain conflict prevent and crisis management provisions. Rehabilitation programmes such as that in Rwanda after the genocide, economic reconstruction programmes such as that in Kosovo today, bilateral aid programmes built on peace agreements such as those in Guatemala and El Salvador are practical examples of how we are helping every day to prevent conflict and to build peace around the world.
No one disputes that recent history in the Balkans, in Africa and elsewhere has taught us that we need to equip ourselves better to try to prevent the outbreak of violent conflict and to react more effectively when it occurs. We have taken some important new initiatives in relation to conflict prevention. Last December the Commission and the High Representative jointly presented a report to the Nice Council with recommendations for improvements. We focused in particular on developing better methods of analysis, closer coordination within the Union and more effective coordination with our international partners – and this follows a point that my honourable friend made – especially the United Nations and the OSCE.
We are now working with the High Representative to follow up the recommendations of the Nice report. We are looking at the development of conflict indicators and early warning systems so that we can focus our attention much better on countries or regions in difficulty. We are also examining how CFSP instruments such as political dialogue can be adapted so that they are more robust, flexible and timely. The Commission is working with the presidency on the action programme which the presidency, as the Minister made clear, will present at the European Council meeting in June.
The Commission is also preparing a communication on conflict prevention which we will present to the Council in April. This communication will focus particularly on addressing the root causes of conflict through Community external aid and development instruments. We will put forward proposals, for example, to build the objectives of peace and democratic stability more clearly into our assistance programmes. We will place greater emphasis in future on support for the building of stable institutions and the rule of law including, of course, the police and the administration of justice. We will also ensure through our assistance programmes that we take account of indicators of political exclusion, ethnic, social or regional marginalisation, environmental degradation or other factors which can contribute to violent conflict.
We intend to contribute to international initiatives, for example through the G8 and the OECD, on issues such as international crime, the diamond trade, drug-trafficking and child soldiers. We have also to exploit to the full other means such as trade policy instruments and trade and cooperation agreements, or our skills on border-management police training, customs assistance missions – which have been such a success in the Balkans – or expertise in migration, social or environmental policy. I look forward to returning to this Parliament to present the communication once it has been finalised. But I am acutely conscious that while we are working on these issues, events in the real world are not put on hold. In southern Serbia and on Kosovo's borders with Macedonia we have a real-life example of a crisis that needs managing, as the Minister said, and a further conflict that must be prevented.
Let me be clear. What is happening on these two borders threatens, if it is not tackled firmly and rapidly, to reverse much of the recent, very heartening progress that has been made in the region. It threatens fresh conflict, fresh instability, just as we were putting those things behind us in the Balkans. Plainly, the straight military security issues involved are for the Council, and above all for NATO, not for the European Commission. I know how hard the presidency, the Minister and my colleague, Javier Solana, have been working on these issues, as has NATO. I very much welcome the cease-fire negotiated on Monday in the Presevo Valley. I very much hope that it will hold.
However, I have been determined that the Commission should contribute as rapidly and fully as possible to support the wider efforts to tackle this crisis both in southern Serbia and on the FYROM border. As Parliament may know, we have already announced that we were prepared to provide about EUR 1 million in assistance for southern Serbia, for the Presevo Valley. We have made available another EUR 900 000 and agreed on 24 projects with deputy prime minister Covic of Serbia and with the local mayor. The 24 projects are in areas like improvement of water and improvement of schools, which we are prepared to undertake as well. That raises our immediate assistance to almost EUR 2 million. I think that is the right way to support deputy prime minister Covic's commitment to try to resolve these issues through dialogue rather than conflict. We are also prepared to put some of the EUR 240 million that we are providing for Serbia in reconstruction assistance this year to doing more in the Presevo Valley."@en1
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