Thank you for giving me the opportunity today to share with you some fundamental thoughts on transatlantic relations and the development of Europe.
The present situation shows that, for all of us, but especially for the U.S. and Europe, security in the 21st century can no longer be defined by the traditional categories of the 20th century. A new totalitarianism, Islamist terrorism and its inhumane Jihad ideology, pose a threat to peace and stability, both regionally and globally.
Its goal is to upset the existing power system in the Islamic Arab world, especially in the Arabian peninsula and in the Gulf region, and to destroy Israel in the long run. Its instruments are suicide attacks and the terror of brutal, cynical force. Its tactic is to create bloody chaos, while its strategy aims at the withdrawal of the U.S. and the West from the entire region.
At present, this central threat to our security does not come from an individual state but, rather, from a new totalitarian movement - a movement which, following the loss of Afghanistan, no longer has another state as its power base.
In contrast to the German Reich under the Nazis, the Japanese Empire in the Second World War or the Soviet Union during the Cold War, this threat is not directed at the strategic potential of the U.S. and the West. Instead, it wants to undermine its morale and trigger reactions which strengthen rather than weaken support for Islamist totalitarianism.
This new threat is comprehensive. It is no longer a question of opposing systems, as was the case in the fight against the traditional totalitarianism of the 20th century. Rather, we are faced with an even greater danger: It is aimed at a religious and cultural clash of civilizations between the Islamic Arab world and the West, led by the U.S.
Our response to this must be equally comprehensive. And since September 11 at the latest, we know that our security in the 21st century does not only depend on the successful globalization of the free transfer of goods. It depends even more on the globalization of fundamental values, such as human rights, respect for life, religious and cultural tolerance, the equality of all human beings, of men and women, the rule of law and democracy and a share of the blessings of education, progress and social security.
Positive globalization is the real strategic response to the deadly challenge of a new totalitarianism.
In political terms, this positive globalization must lead to a reorganization of the international system of states. It must lead to a new world order in which six billion people, more than 190 states and all the many religions and cultures can live alongside each other relatively peacefully.
It also entails the creation of a fair world trade system, answers to climate change and preservation of the global environment, the fight against poverty and AIDS, support of human rights and continued development of international law and its institutions.
For that, we need more than strong democracies based on a stable foundation of values. We also need strong multilateral institutions - first and foremost a reformed UN - which are able to enforce and uphold this order in keeping with international law. Such a world order must be based on effective multilateralism, which is able to impose peace and security.
This effective multilateralism requires both the U.S., as a world power, and the UN, as a framework institution recognized by its 190 member states and therefore indispensable. For, despite all its shortcomings, the UN is the only international organization with the resource of global legitimacy.
In the 21st century, security through cooperation and integration, security through participation and progress, will be just as important as security through deterrence and containment.
The West won the Cold War by combining strategic power and a positive alternative system, by using "hard power" and "soft power". The alternative system, however, was the decisive factor.
We will now have to join forces to master the same challenge again, although under completely different circumstances. The positive answer to globalization by the rich countries of the West is of overriding, indeed strategic importance.
One of the favorite gloomy questions being asked by political journalists at present is, "Is the West at an end?" My clear answer is "no!". The West would only be at an end if the transatlantic community were to have no future due to a lack of common interests, and Europe and America were to go their separate ways.
However, our interests demand the very opposite. Let us not get confused by the current dispute in the transatlantic family. There will always be arguments now and again in an alliance of free democracies, and they can be very fundamental arguments.
We can only successfully counter these new threats if the U.S., Canada and the EU draw up a long-term plan to tackle this strategic task together, on the basis of their common values, interests and the successful transatlantic tradition of the last few decades.
Here lies the common transatlantic interest and the necessity for a new NATO in the 21st century. NATO will remain one of the key cornerstones for peace and stability. By the same token, however, we must remember that if we split, the consequences for us all on both sides of the Atlantic will be extremely negative.
At the beginning of the 21st century, however, transatlantic relations are based on two very unequal partners. The U.S. is the only global power. It is the oldest and, at the same time, a continental democracy. It is globally present and dominant in almost all spheres of soft and hard power.
The U.S. is a world power. The EU, on the other hand, is still a power in the making. Granted, there is already a single market which will soon have 450 million people and which has a common currency, the euro. But Europe's weak growth rates, its demographic problem, its political fragmentation and its military weakness cannot be denied.
We can only have stable transatlantic relations if the two pillars of this bridge across the North Atlantic are able to bear more or less the same burden. Europeans know that they must correct their shortcomings as quickly as possible and, let me add, they will do so. Not a strong European pillar but a weak one would pose a threat to NATO. And only a strong European pillar can guarantee Europe's partnership in the transatlantic alliance. In view of the global situation, I believe that strengthening the European pillar is therefore in America's own best interest.
Perhaps because of Europe's obvious weaknesses, there is a tendency to overlook and underestimate the scale of the almost revolutionary changes which the old continent has undergone since the end of the Cold War. This new European revolution has been low-key and of a somewhat conservative nature, with no gunsmoke or barricades, with almost no wars (with the exception of the former Yugoslavia) and with no suppression or dictatorship. However, the facts clearly show what is at stake in Europe.
The European Union stands at a key turning point in its history: On the eve of its enlargement to include 10 new member states and a radical reform of its system towards a European constitution, the question is whether Europe will ever become a political entity acting on the international stage. Will Europe succeed in resolving the fundamental contradiction between national sovereignty and the full political integration of the Union? Can Europe become a power in the 21st century?
Much, indeed perhaps all, of Europe's future depends on the answers to these questions. Why? The 19th century and the first half of the 20th century were an age of nation-state building in Europe. In the 21st century, the European nation-states, even the largest among them, will prove to be too small and less than optimal in both political and economic terms.
The issue of the completion of European integration is controversial. It not only occupies the old continent at present, but is also being discussed on the other side of the Atlantic. Over the last few decades, Europe's growing integration has been observed in the U.S. with great interest, sometimes with astonishment, and occasionally with skepticism. Due to the new and dangerous international situation following September 11 and during the controversial debate over the Iraq war, the discussion about the European partner gained a new, and not always positive, dimension.
The following questions are therefore being asked in Europe: Does America still have any interest in Europe's political integration? Does a politically integrated Europe, thus also fully capable of taking political action on the international stage, fit into the U.S. strategy? Did the American view of Europe change after September 11? And finally, what value, what significance does the transatlantic partnership have for the U.S. today?
Before I try to find answers to these questions and take a look at the future prospects for European-American cooperation, I would like to take this opportunity to briefly outline the development of the EU:
Europe's integration is the response to the collapse after two world wars of the traditional European system of states, which had emerged from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. These wars were the catastrophic outcome of a destructive nationalism and militarism which ruined the old European system of states for good.
On two occasions during the 20th century, the military and political intervention of the U.S. was needed to successfully defeat the hegemonic threat to Europe by the German Reich and to guarantee its own security. And during the five decades of the Cold War, the U.S. defended western Europe and West Berlin against the hegemonic threat of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, these military interventions by the U.S. in Europe, in which many Americans lost their lives, secured freedom and democracy on the European continent. Democratic Germany, too, owes its freedom, and not least its restored unity, to the U.S.
Today's Europe is based on two fundamental decisions of truly historic dimensions: the first one was made by American statesmen, namely the decision to remain present in Europe politically and militarily after 1945 and to defend the freedom of western Europe. This decision led to the establishment of NATO.
And the second fundamental decision was based on the idea of two great Frenchmen, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet. They proposed the development of a new system of states in Europe - a system which was no longer founded on the balance of power but, rather, on the idea of the integration of sovereign states and their interests. This led to the Rome Treaties in 1957 and, subsequently, to the development of the EU.
What began as economic integration in the shadow of the Cold War gradually extended to political spheres - mainly in the field of domestic policy. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the EU - and Germany in particular - was released from a decades-old burden: the division of Germany, the division of the continent in two hostile systems had been overcome.
However, we now know that the withdrawal of the state and the political sphere, indeed the "end of history", which was greeted almost euphorically at the beginning of the nineties, proved to be a mere illusion. More and more, the international community was confronted in the period following the end of the Cold War with new and disturbing losses of order. Numerous crises and conflicts in many parts of the world increased instability and the danger of armed conflicts.
The culmination of these new dangers, which arose from a diffuse loss of order in the international political system, was September 11, 2001. The horrific terrorist attacks on the government and citizens of the U.S. and on all free societies made clear the terrible destructive potential of Islamist terrorism and its totalitarian ideology. But it also illustrated the threat which the forgotten conflicts of the present could pose to world peace.
Following the end of the Cold War, the world order underwent a radical change. The global confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union had created a simple one-dimensional world order which influenced nearly all conflicts. With the fall of the Soviet Union, this central conflict disappeared and left a diffuse structure which led to a three-dimensional international reality.
The major powers and their alliances form the highest level. On the second level, regional powers operate and carry out their regional conflicts. The failing states, civil wars and the breeding grounds of non-state violence and of terrorism are the basement of this international system. Today's world still has a central power, the U.S., but it no longer has a central conflict which imposes an international order.
The structure of these new threats is also of great importance. Religious hatred, nationalist confrontation, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism - each of these elements is dangerous enough in itself and, in the present day, often the cause of dangerous crises and wars. However, if these four elements combine and aggravate each other, then we really will be faced with a new strategic threat.
September 11 turned the discussion about a new order following the Cold War into a fundamental question of regional and global security. We cannot put off our response to this any longer if we want to avoid an irresponsibly high risk to security. The answer to the question of the new world order must therefore also be given top priority in the transatlantic relationship.
Perhaps we made a vital mistake when we failed to begin this transatlantic discussion immediately after September 2001. And maybe this would have spared us some disputes within the alliance.
Against this background, the significance of the transatlantic alliance must be re-evaluated. Skeptical voices are getting louder. Can the close partnership between Europe and America deliver the right answer to the new international situation? Has it outlived its usefulness altogether?
Let me ask a question in reply to that: Will our world be safer if partners on both sides of the Atlantic drift apart? Does a weaker alliance mean more security for both Europe and the U.S.?
I believe the answer is "no". Europe and America depend upon each other in their fight against the new threat. We are in the same boat because we want to defend the same thing: the freedom and security of our citizens, as well as our open democracies and human rights. These are the goals which we are both pursuing. These are the values which we share. Therefore, I am firmly convinced that we can only overcome the upcoming challenges if we work together.
However, that also means that we have to agree on how to respond to this threat and to do so as equal partners.
We did succeed in this when we formed the antiterror coalition following September 11. In the question concerning a war against Iraq, disagreement broke out. We did not agree on whether the reasons were actually sufficient, on what consequences the war would have for the fight against international terrorism and for regional stability and on whether the consequences of the war were controllable.
Despite these differences, it holds true today that we must win the peace together. We are convinced that the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis and a central role for the UN are crucial.
To be successful in developing a new Middle East over the long term, something else is, however, indispensable: The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians must be resolved - through a two-state solution, more or less on the basis of the border of 1967. The way to get there is by implementing the road map.
Following September 11 we failed within the EU to define our own foreign-policy strategy. We had no coordinated and clear European standpoint to feed into a strategic dialogue with our American friends.
To rectify these shortcomings, the EU is presently working - for the first time, by the way - on a common security strategy, which is scheduled to be adopted by the end of this year. This strategy is based on a comprehensive security concept - a security concept which extends from crisis prevention through diplomacy to the instrument of last resort, namely military means.
Strategic considerations, it is true, are becoming more important within the EU. We are more convinced than ever that the EU's eastward enlargement is right and necessary in order to extend the zone of stability, peace and security on our continent.
And the enlargement next May will not be the last: Romania and Bulgaria could follow as early as 2007. We also regard the question of Turkey's possible accession to the EU in this context. The reasons for Germany's strong backing for the pre-accession process for Turkey are not least also global strategic in nature.
At the same time, however, there are fundamental structural
shortcomings in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy which must
be rectified. I see three main weaknesses concerning:
- the process of forming political will
- institutional implementation
- military capabilities.
In a group of 15, soon 25, nations with different historical backgrounds and interests, political coordination and decision-making will continue to be difficult. This is understandable in the light of Europe's development. But I fear that we cannot afford to continue the current painful process of coordination in future.
The institutional implementation is also in urgent need of improvement. We need the right tools in Europe in order to implement our common foreign policy.
And we certainly need modernized and strengthened military capabilities in Europe if we are to make a key contribution towards collective security within the context of NATO and other partnerships.
Here, the proper use of scarce resources has priority. The creation of a European armaments agency also serves this purpose. Nor is it efficient for the armed forces of each of the 15, soon 25, member states to have all branches of service and to want to achieve the same goals.
We agree that European foreign policy must become more coherent and consistent. There is growing awareness among member states that Europe can only face up to the risks which threaten it if they join forces.
A common European foreign and security policy played an especially important role in the European Convention. The draft European constitution contains groundbreaking proposals on improving the EU's effectiveness in the field of foreign policy. The post of European foreign minister and a European foreign service are to be established. This would considerably improve the EU's effectiveness at international level.
This intensive debate within Europe about security issues is being observed very closely by Americans. Distrust is often evident. Some voices within and outside Europe fear that the increasing institutionalization of the European Security and Defense Policy will lead to duplication, and will even weaken NATO.
I can only repeat again: The opposite is true. NATO is the key institution of the transatlantic alliance. No one wants to call into question its fundamental importance as the guarantor of our security. Rather, an ESDP capable of taking effective action will bring to life the concept of the "European pillar of NATO" - a concept, by the way, developed by the U.S. To achieve this, the EU must also improve its planning and command capabilities. What we want is for ESDP to complement NATO, not compete with it.
And the Macedonia example has demonstrated the complementary nature of the European and transatlantic defense structures: Relying on NATO assets and capabilities, the EU took over the leadership of the military mission in that country.
For almost five decades now, the Europeans have been pooling their resources and capabilities in an increasingly effective way, also in security policy. For example, the EU and its member states have the greatest experience with, and best instruments for, mastering the very difficult challenges of nation-building. Today, the EU has a wide range of political, economic and financial instruments - and they will soon be used by 25 member states.
Already now, the EU is making a significant military contribution to crisis management and long-term stabilization. Some 5,400 European troops are deployed in the fight against international terrorism. In Afghanistan, the EU is providing approximately 5,000 troops as part of ISAF and operation "Enduring Freedom". With 21,100 troops - just over four times as many as the U.S. - Europe has assumed the lion's share of securing peace in the Balkans. And with 3,500 troops, the Europeans are providing seven times as many troops as America for UN peacekeeping missions.
Another example is our considerable commitment to international development policy, where the EU and its member states are by far the biggest state donors with a 51.1% share of overall international support - a fundamental investment in peace, stability and security in the world.
Moreover, through its trade and financial policy Europe is making a major contribution to stabilization, democratization and good governance, for example, by providing incentives and concluding partnership agreements under the Cotonou Agreement.
And in the field of arms control and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Europe is also vigorously engaged.
The example of Iran shows that Europeans and Americans equally take seriously the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. On both sides of the Atlantic, we have no illusions about the extent of the threat. That is why we must prevent future global and regional arms races and establish an international arms control regime - a regime which both enjoys international legitimacy and has effective control and sanctions mechanisms.
If we want to make the world safer together, then there is no way around such a system. I believe the United Nations offers the right framework for such a regime.
Development cooperation, financial and trade policy, human rights policy, the police and military - hardly any other player in the security sphere has such a broad combination of crisis management means at its disposal. This multi-dimensional range of instruments is especially important because we know that the new threats cannot be overcome by military means alone.
After all, we must not forget that the EU as such is the biggest European peace initiative in our history. It has led to lasting peace on the European continent for the first time.
I already mentioned, Europe is a "power in the making". Especially now, when the EU is about to become a genuine Union that makes a difference in foreign policy, the political and economic demands on its member states are very high. And it is very hard to reliably assess how long it will need for the twofold process of European integration - enlargement and the completion of political union.
The EU will therefore have to talk a lot in the coming weeks and months, mainly within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference, about whether and how a Union with 25 or more members will function and how its foreign policy can be made more effective. These negotiations will not be easy. However, I am confident that we will achieve good results. Only time will tell whether the European integration process will have to go through one or another crisis to get there.
Let me conclude by summing up:
America and Europe can master the challenges of the 21st century, but only if they act together.
In doing so, we must take into consideration three fundamental elements on both sides of the Atlantic. They are crucial if we are to stand firm against and successfully counter the dangers of the 21st century.
The first element is the unconditional commitment of the Western democracies to their own fundamental values - freedom, human rights, tolerance, democracy, the rule of law and the social market economy.
The second element is the commitment to and respect for an international order based on shared values, the law, consent, cooperation and participation. Not an order based on force. But an order enabling the greatest possible number of states and their citizens to participate politically, economically, socially and culturally in the shaping of the globalized world.
And the third element is the political determination and military strength to avert new dangers. Both components are necessary to destroy once and for all totalitarian networks and ideologies built on hatred.
The road to success for us, the Western democracies, should lie in combining these three elements, which determine effective multilateralism. These principles, in my view, will guide us in making our joint contribution towards a peaceful, just and democratic world order. We both believe in it, America and Europe.
Thank you.