Speeches

The European Union: A Global Power?

Benita Ferrero-Waldner

European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy

George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and Texas A&M University EU Center of Excellence, College Station, Texas, 25 September 2006

Professor Popadiuk,

Dr. Lembke,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for your warm welcome. I am delighted to be here in Texas. I come to you after a week in the United Nations in New York where we were discussing the most pressing international issues of the day. Since becoming Commissioner, I always have tried to combine the UN week in New York with visits to important universities around the country. This contact with the American academic society and youth is always very gratifying. Last year I spoke at Boston University; this year I am very happy to be with you in Houston!

Let me begin by thanking Executive Director Popadiuk for the opportunity to speak to you. It is a great honor to address the George Bush Presidential Library. President Bush played a pivotal role in advancing the transatlantic relationship, working with then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, European Commission President Jacques Delors and other leaders to begin the long and now successful task of building a Europe free and whole. We are all in his debt.

I also want to salute the work of Texas A&M University’s EU Center of Excellence which is one of a network of 10 such centers supported by the European Commission at prestigious universities across the US. I know you are doing tremendous work here to foster transatlantic links and knowledge about the EU’s complex workings. I thank you for that and I offer my congratulations and best wishes for all future success to Emily Ashworth, the Associate Vice President for International Programs, and Johan Lembke, the Center’s Director. As Madeleine Albright put it, “To understand Europe you have to be a genius.” I think that says it all!

In preparing for today I researched the links between Texas and Europe, and discovered that we have even stronger economic ties than I had imagined. In 2004, for example, Texas exports to Europe totaled more than $12 billion, including chemicals, computers, and machinery.

Europe is by far the largest source of foreign direct investment in Texas, in fact, European companies have more money invested in the state of Texas alone than the United States has invested in China and Japan combined. According to the US Department of Commerce, that European investment supports 226,000 jobs.

But if we are being honest, most Europeans are unaware of the strength of those economic ties. And whilst they know that Texas is an important state, not least because it is the home base of the current President and his renowned father, if you were to stop someone on the street in London, Riga or Athens and ask them what they knew about Texas, you would probably hear a mixture of “cowboys,” “oilwells” and “Sue Ellen, JR and Bobby”!

That probably sounds utterly ridiculous to you. And indeed, having spent a day in Houston yesterday visiting some of the state’s impressive museums, and seeing your beautiful campus here today, I am a first-hand witness of how wrong those stereotypes are.

But of course all nations have stereotypes of others. The students of the EU Center of Excellence here today certainly know better than to fall for them. But stereotypes have amazing popular currency. And I must say some American stereotypes of Europe are pretty inventive, ranging from Robert Kagan’s “Mars versus Venus” to The Simpsons’ more prosaic “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” And I’m sure you could tell me others!

There’s also a perception in the US that Europe is nothing but a large open-air museum, slowly gathering dust and fading into obscurity. Some believe we’re pretty much “yesterday,” especially when compared with the emerging economies of China and India.

In fact, the EU is growing and changing in ways that people who live elsewhere don’t always comprehend. I hope my speech today will give you some more insight into what’s going on in the “old continent” and help dispel those creative myths!

The fact is that the EU is a global player, with a population of almost half a billion across 25 countries, accounting for a quarter of world income, over a fifth of world trade and some 60% of global development assistance. Next January, Romania and Bulgaria will likely be added, bringing the total population to more than half a billion.

I don’t want to deny there are problems – weak, although improving economic growth, external competition and an ageing population certainly pose challenges. Our unemployment of around 18 million is socially and economically unsustainable – and unacceptable. Immigration and demography are causing rapid and not always well-managed changes in European societies, as you saw in the scenes from Paris last year. And while we have seen the longest period of peace Europe has ever experienced, latent conflicts still exist on our borders.

Surveys show that while Europe’s citizens are generally content with their lives, they do have one major concern, and that is globalization. They take the positive side of globalization - more choice, cheaper living costs and a higher standard of living – for granted. And focus, not unnaturally, on the negatives - companies facing new sources of competition, jobs disappearing and families and communities feeling the results.

Other challenges we face are shared by the US. Indeed, a recent survey of transatlantic trends by the German Marshall Fund revealed that European and American publics have a surprisingly similar perception of the global threats they face. Large majorities agree on the importance of international terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, immigration, the global spread of disease, global warming, the growing power of China and violence and instability in Iraq.

Energy security and energy efficiency, while not listed in the GMF survey, have also risen to the top of the political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic.

One interesting result from the survey is that global warming is the one area where Europeans feel more of a threat than do Americans, despite Katrina and its disastrous consequences. I know that here in Texas energy and the environment receive more attention than elsewhere and I am glad the EU Center of Excellence is putting resources into that. Because the threat we face is real and present, and can only be tackled if the world’s nations work together.

As good students of the EU you will also be aware of the more existential questions the EU has been facing, as a result of last year’s French “non” and Dutch “nee” to our Constitutional Treaty. You will have followed the discussions about why it was rejected. And you will have contemplated what it meant for the future of the EU.

Did you reach the conclusion that the EU is history? On top of the other challenges we face, is this the final push that sends us over the edge? In the words of the flyer for this event, is Europe beginning a gradual decline?

I expect you can guess my answer: “No.”

As is sometimes said, the EU thrives on crisis.

We agreed last year, after the “no” votes, to have a period of reflection. But that period of reflection has not been a period of introspection. On the contrary, we have taken advantage of the pause to reconnect with our citizens’ most important concerns – security, stability, prosperity and a stronger EU in the world.

We recognize that what our citizens want is results, so we are concentrating on concrete achievements to show that the EU is part of the solution, not part of the problem.

And to show that rather than an “old continent,” unable to respond to today’s challenges, we have become a relevant, dynamic power.

We know we have to improve security against threats that know no borders, like international terrorism and global pandemics. We have to tackle issues like growth and jobs by reforming the economy. And we have to modernize Europe’s social models in imaginative new ways to make them more sustainable and to meet Europeans’ expectations without suffocating economic dynamism.

We are getting there - economic growth has accelerated to its fastest growth for6 years, domestic demand is picking up and unemployment has dropped to its lowest point since 1998.

There’s obviously more to do, so in the coming years the European Commission will focus on fighting economic nationalism, defending and widening the internal market and ensuring a clear and coherent stance on competition issues. We will also continue efforts to boost innovation in Europe, setting up a European Institute of Technology as a flagship for European excellence and so closing the gap between higher education, research and business.

All this in a way which responds to our citizens’ fears of globalization by addressing the social consequences of economic restructuring.

The other part of the equation is the role the EU plays in the world. Seventy percent of EU citizens want the EU to play a stronger role in the world. Indeed, building a secure and economically strong Europe and playing a leading role in world affairs is the only sensible response to globalization.

That means building a stronger EU foreign policy. The stronger we are, the more we can achieve.

It is also an implicit response to the justifiable criticism from many in the United States that we have not, in the past, pulled our weight in dealing with crises and conflicts around the world.

So we have been responding by building up our foreign, security and defense policy.

As a result we are now a better and more effective global player and are working with the US to defend our collective interests and build a safer world. We now have around 60,000 European peacekeepers serving across the globe. And we are now working aggressively to combat terrorism, promote sustainable development and secure peace in troubled parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Many of the areas of the world in which the EU is most active were on top of our agenda in New York last week.

Afghanistan is one of them. We had thorough discussions, be it in the G8 context or in transatlantic meetings with Condi Rice. In Afghanistan the EU is providing 80% of the troops in NATO’s International Security Force. And, together with the US, we shared the costs of the presidential and parliamentary elections. We are also actively involved in a number of sectors vital to Afghanistan’s development such as counter-narcotics, security sector and judicial reform, fighting against corruption, civil society development, human rights, education and culture – promoting good governance. These various priorities show the need for better coordination between the military and civilian dimensions of our engagement.

It is crucial that we succeed in bringing lasting peace and stability to Afghanistan, because the situation there affects stability not only in the country and its neighborhood, but our common stance in the worldwide fight against terrorism. The EU has been a steadfast partner in the stabilization and recovery process of Afghanistan. The European Commission alone will this year complete delivery of the more than $1 billion over the last 5 years pledged in 2002.

There were important discussions in New York on moving towards lasting peace in Lebanon. The EU played a vital role, together with the US, in obtaining [UN] Resolution 1701, and European troops now form the backbone of the UN peacekeeping force. The European Commission alone has mobilized well over €100 million to come to the aid of Lebanon and its people, with humanitarian and reconstruction assistance.

We are now bolstering our support for the most pressing priorities: strengthening the rule of law and internal security forces, reviving the economy, creating jobs and generating family income.

Institutional reforms and state-building are essential for the country’s socio-economic reconstruction. Only that way will we see the strong, sovereign, unified and politically independent country which is essential for lasting peace in the region.

The Israel-Palestine conflict was also a major focus of discussions last week. Although over the summer most peoples’ attention was focused on the dramatic scenes from Lebanon, the violence and suffering continued in the Palestinian territories and the Kassam rockets continued to fall on Israeli towns and villages. We need to move towards a comprehensive regional solution, and I hope the political program of Palestine’s national unity government will enable us to engage again and continue our work on institution- and state-building.

Indeed, last Wednesday we had a very important meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet (that is the US, the UN, Russia and us, the EU). There, the Quartet endorsed the position taken by EU Foreign Ministers only the week before on Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to form a national unity government. Like the EU, the Quartet called for a government program which reflects the principles set by the Quartet:

- renouncing violence

- standing by the previous agreements of PLO, and

- recognizing Israel.

I believe it is essential that, while we remain firm on these principles, we are also flexible about how the new government expresses its intentions in this regard.

For the short term we need Palestinian militants to return to “calm,” we need both sides to release hostages, detainees and prisoners and we need progress on basic issues of movement and access.

The EU found a creative solution to the international community’s dilemma in the aftermath of the Hamas government’s election, namely how to support the Palestinian people without dealing with the government itself.

That was to set up the Temporary International Mechanism, which has enabled the international community to provide humanitarian relief for the Palestinian people and so to stave off a humanitarian emergency. Another example of how the “old continent” is well able to hold its own in international affairs! We ensured access to clean water and sanitation in the Gaza Strip, kept hospitals and healthcare centers going through the summer and provided social allowance payments that have benefited more than 600,000 Palestinians.

But this cannot go on for much longer. We must seek ways to improve access and movement, get Israel to unblock the Palestinians’ fiscal revenues which they are currently holding back and get the PA [Palestinian Authority] to ensure public order and security.

An important part of a comprehensive regional solution will be some form of new engagement with Syria – if Syria shows a constructive attitude on SC [UN Security Council] Resolution 1701 on Lebanon - and sorting out the current stalemate with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Here Europe has already been playing the lead role in creating the broad international coalition and political consensus which underpins it. We have put forward a far-reaching proposal for an entire new relationship, based on dialogue and cooperation, on behalf of Europe, the US, China and Russia. Negotiations are not always easy, but we are hopeful that the incentives we can provide will finally encourage Iran to move towards us. Negotiations will be taken up again this week.

And we are there in Iraq, in the DR [Democratic Republic] of Congo, in Aceh/Indonesia and many other parts of the world. I can not go into that for lack of time, but I am happy to explain in our discussion. What can be said is that wherever there is the need to prevent conflict or to help countries overcome devastation, the EU is there.

Of course the EU has other important foreign policy priorities, closer to home. Our 2004 “big bang” enlargement was a tremendous step towards bringing the historic division of Europe to an end. It has also been our most successful foreign policy achievement in spreading democracy, peace and prosperity beyond our borders. The EU’s enlargement will continue but probably at a much slower pace, given the political realities in Europe.

Our partners in the Balkans and Turkey are working towards reform with the prospect of membership in mind.

But we also have a new foreign policy tool, the European Neighborhood Policy, for those of our neighbors to the East and South that currently have no perspective of EU membership. We have offered them a stake in our internal market if they make progress in economic and political reforms. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the southern Mediterranean countries all benefit from this and other incentives like participation in EU programs and transport and telecommunications networks. Our objective is to expand the circle of prosperous, stable and secure countries which surround the EU.

As with our domestic policies there is much more we can achieve in the field of foreign policy, and much more work for the future. It is true that the constitutional treaty would have improved the functioning of our external action. It would have made the EU more effective, more transparent and more accountable.

But for the time being, there is no constitutional treaty. That does not mean we cannot improve. On the contrary, there is a great deal we can do to build Europe’s effectiveness and legitimacy without it.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope I have convinced you that Europe is very much alive and well! And that rather than sinking into obscurity we are rising to the challenges we face and equipping ourselves for the 21st century world order. The Europe of 2006 is a dynamic, prosperous place of disappearing borders, more mobility and still greater diversity.

As the Chinese Ambassador in Brussels put it when discussing the creation and success of the European Union, “[it’s] one of those events which happen in the world only every four or five hundred years.”

We are not about to let that achievement fade into history!

Thank you and I look forward to your questions.