"The European Union: an Area of Peace and Prosperity"

Transcription

1 "The European Union: an Area of Peace and Prosperity" Bernhard Zepter Ambassador and Head of Delegation Speech 2005/06/06

2 2 Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for inviting me to talk to you about the EU. It is a pleasure for me to be here at Hiroshima City University which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. The International Studies Faculty and the Hiroshima Peace Institute, affiliated with the university, make it an important partner for the Commission's Delegation and one of the most important centres of learning on EU Studies in the Chugoku region. This is my first visit to Hiroshima. To visit this city is not routine business, protocol affair or normal sightseeing trip. Hiroshima's name and fate have become the symbol of the horror of modern warfare. At the dawn of an atomic age, with its promises and threats, Hiroshima is more than a reminder of the atrocities of nuclear war. It is also a vibrant appeal to the whole world to curb the insane arms race, to fight by all possible means the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to strive for a peaceful, stable and prosperous world. The city of Hiroshima has devoted itself to being an emissary of peace. Many of its activities involve co-operation with cities in EU Member States, including Como in Italy, Hannover in Germany, Malakoff in France and Manchester in the UK. Hannover is also Hiroshima's sister city and I hope that this relationship as well as the Mayors of Peace can be used to promote closer contacts between Hiroshima and the EU. These contacts are of particular importance at a time when we celebrate the 2005 EU-Japan Year of People-to-People Exchanges. The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Courses have been organised at universities in Japan and abroad including for example co-operation with the Technische Fachhochschule in Berlin. Business contacts between the EU and Hiroshima are also important with companies such as Webasto and Bosch investing substantially in the prefecture. I. Let me now turn to the subject of my presentation. I am particularly happy to talk about the EU as an area of peace and prosperity here in Hiroshima. I would like to start with a very short look back at the origins of the EU integration process and our most important achievements so far. In a certain sense, European integration and Hiroshima's engagement to promote peace, are two sides of the same coin. Never war between us was the key lesson the Europeans learned from the two world wars in the last century and which guided the Founding Fathers of the European unification project when they developed their bold proposals. European integration started with the creation of a Community to control the basic resources and strategically important production, the European Community for Coal and Steel (ECCS). One could say that whereas motivation for the European integration process was of a political nature, the method actually adopted to achieve political unity was economic and sectoral. The key in legal and institutional terms was the readiness of the six European nations to transfer part of their national sovereignty to a supra-national authority entitled to act on their behalf.

3 3 Encouraged by the success of the ECCS, the six Member States created the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community which were operational in In 1967, the executive structures of the three communities were merged. In 1968, the EEC completed the process of creating a customs union among its Member States and the responsibility for external trade policy passed from the Member States to the EC. The creation in the centre of Europe of an area of peace and political stability and the gradual establishment of an internal market brought about important economic success. In 1973 the UK, Ireland and Denmark decided to join the EC. This was followed by the accession of Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, and Austria, Finland and Sweden in In the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, EU enlargement became the key feature of stability policy on the European continent. On 1 May 2004, ten new candidates joined the EU (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia). Bulgaria and Romania are still negotiating accession with a view to becoming members of the EU in Turkey has also applied for membership and the European Council, at its meeting in December 2004, has decided to open negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005, if certain conditions are still met. However, as Turkey is a politically and economically sensitive case, nobody expects presently that it can join the EU before To meet the challenges of a deepening and widening European integration, numerous legal and institutional adaptations and Treaty changes were required. In 1987, the Single European Act established the roadmap for the completion of the Internal Market by It also consolidated the institutional structure of the EC, including first steps to establish a common foreign and security policy. In 1993, the Treaty of Maastricht was adopted, creating the European Union and setting the timetable for the introduction of the single currency, the euro. The Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice were ratified in 1999 and 2003 respectively. They aimed at reinforcing the EU's institutional arrangements in preparation for enlargement. On 29 October 2004 in Rome, EU Member States signed the draft of a Constitution for Europe. But the process of ratification seems to be seriously in danger now that the French people have rejected the Treaty establishing this Constitution. I shall come back to this later. II. The lynch-pin of 50 years of integration policy in Europe is the completion of an internal market without obstacles to free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. This policy, flanked by a very efficient and powerful competition policy, has led to unprecedented political stability, economic prosperity and improved social cohesion among Member States. But there are other important achievements :

4 4 Firstly, the introduction of a common currency, the Euro, adopted by 12 of our 15 Member States. The Euro is not only a necessary completion of the internal market but also a tool to stabilize the macroeconomic environment; Secondly, the establishment of a common trade policy which takes into account the fact that in combining the trade of 15 Member States the EU is second to none in international trade. The pooling of competence has made the EU the most powerful actor in the multilateral trading system; Thirdly, the common agricultural policy to stabilize income on the highly volatile international agricultural markets, thereby contributing to food security and food safety as well as a stable social structure in rural parts of Europe; Fourth, the common action in the field of communication and information through improvements in the European infrastructure and the creation of enhanced communication networks, including the GALILEO satellite navigation project; Fifth, an important budget for common action the field of basic research and technological development, completing activities of Member States and interconnecting them through additional financial incentives; Sixth, common policies and actions in fields like environmental protection, healthcare, consumer protection, transport ( trans-european Networks ), police and judicial cooperation, industrial policy, labour and social rights, culture and education and many other areas. Recent changes with respect to the European Security and Defence Policy are equally important. ESDP will allow the Union to develop capacities for crisis management and conflict prevention at international level thus helping to maintain peace and international security, in accordance with the United Nations Charter. Presently, the activities of the EU are supported by a total of 32,966 members of staff and an annual budget of over 100 billion euro, which approximately corresponds to 13 trillion yen. As the executive branch of the EU, the Commission alone employs 22,534 people. Will the French No' to the European Constitution now stop the development towards an evermore integrated European Union? What are the main improvements of this Draft Constitution which Member States signed in Rome on 29 October 2004? I should like to mention just the more important ones : The integration of the European Charter on fundamental rights in the Constitution, transforming it from a merely political document into a legally binding instrument; To give the EU legal personality so that the EU becomes one single judicial entity, not an amalgam of different pillars representing different policy areas with different institutional;

5 5 The clarification of basic principles of European law like subsidiarity, proportionality, conferral of rights, loyal cooperation between Member States and the institutions, voting rights with more majority voting, the primacy of EU law over national law, democratic equality, or transparency of proceedings; A clearer division of power between the different institutions and more democratic legitimacy for the Commission with direct election of the European Parliament for the Head of the EU's executive; Important institutional changes, in particular the appointment of a permanent President of the Council, as well as a Foreign Minister who is at the same time Vice-President of the Commission. One may ask the question what motivation stood behind the French and Dutch voters to reject this concept. This is the more astonishing as the Constitution is not a totally new document, but builds on existing Treaties which will prevail even if the Constitution is definitely rejected. In this sense the EU will not fall into a legal vacuum. But one has to read the Nice Treaty carefully to understand how important it would be and how useful for the citizens of Europe, to replace the sometimes obscure and very technical language of the Treaties by a much clearer, consistent document which at the same time gives a signal to the outside world that Europe exists and develops further. When we look back in the history of the EU we can clearly see that the more the EU demonstrated its capacity to stabilize the Continent economically and politically, the more attractive it became for other European countries. It would be too easy to link the success of European integration only to its economic success or its ability to stabilize its environment politically. There is more than just the wish to gather prosperity or to secure peace, in particular for younger people who are much less aware of the period of war and the reconstruction efforts after the war. It is the wish to work together in order to meet with the new challenges of our society. I do believe that the process of gradual integration, as exemplified by the emergence of the European Union, is important not only for the Europeans but also for a country like Japan. We are living in a world which is shaped by the process of globalisation. We are both seeking additional security to what the traditional nation state was so far able to provide. Only by working with likeminded countries and people, can we preserve our basic interests and needs. Threats like international terrorism, the use of weapons of mass destruction, trans-border criminality, constantly diminishing natural resources, prevailing poverty in large parts of the world, communicable diseases, under-development, climate change, and the destruction of old and precious cultures, can not be solved by unilateral action or through actions policing the world. There is no alternative to constant efforts to seek to establish a new world-order based on the recognition of common values, interests and enforceable rules. In this sense, the EU is an important test case. Step-by-step, within the EU, people are developing what I would like to call an enlarged social contract to cope with challenges we all face

6 6 in our global village. No unilateralism but the rule of law. No use of force but a common network to overcome the threat of instability, civil wars and wars. Our enlarged social contract needs to be built on mutual tolerance and solidarity. To achieve these targets, specific rules need to be respected and appropriate mechanisms need to be developed. The traditional model of a nation state is only of limited value to act as a guiding line. As the German philosopher Sloterdijk said on the doorstep to the 21 st century : the EU should not be the repetition of a classical nation state and of all the errors which this model has brought about in the past. It should be much more the type of a university where people learn how to work and live together in peace and without fear. III. The more the EU developed and became an actor in international affairs, the more it also deepened its relations with Japan. There is on both sides a clear interest for economic and political cooperation. The EU is cooperating with Japan on many bilateral and multilateral levels. EU and Japan cooperation is built on solid ground : in 1991 the EU, then the EC, and Japan held their firstsummit meeting at which they issued the Hague Declaration. This was the first attempt to establish the objectives and framework for political dialogue between the EU and Japan. Ten years later, in 2001, the partnership was renewed as Japan and the EU saw an opportunity to broaden bilateral political co-operation. The result of this reflection was the EU-Japan Action Plan. At the core of this Plan are the common values that bind the EU and Japan together, specifically democratic principles, rule of law, human rights and an open economy. There are presently many activities to flesh out the Action Plan. The Year of 2005 has been chosen as a year of EU-Japan People-to-People Exchanges. While making use of the existing framework of bilateral programmes such as the EU-Japan Journalists Conference, EU-Japan Friendship Week and the activities of the EU-Japan Fest new opportunities for educational, cultural and civil society exchanges have been included in the programme for this year. The setting up of EU Institutes by a consortium of universities is part of the cultural diplomacy of the European Union. A second Institute has been recently chosen and will officially be opened in the autumn this year at Kobe University. Let me conclude : IV. Japan and the EU have a great many things in common and therefore can do many things together to create political stability in a region and secure peace. Hiroshima is the town which best symbolises new policy. We should continue to cooperate with our neighbours to broaden the economic base and enhance competitiveness. We should create large networks in infrastructure and communication, cope with the problem of the destruction of the natural environ-

7 7 ment and cooperate to preserve maritime resources. We have a common interest to fight terrorism and international crime and to develop common strategies towards development, healthcare, food security, the aging of society and many more issues. In a constantly globalising world, new and bold strategies are needed if we want to maintain freedom of action and preserve our interest. Whereas the EU model of gradual integration and transfer of sovereignty to common institutions can not be simply applied in a country like Japan with its different history, culture and geography, lessons might be drawn from the European procedures to solve international problems through a gradual step-by-step process of cooperation. There are so many things which we can do in common and which go beyond mere economic and trade relations. We should address them in a spirit of co-operation, building a more secure and more prosperous world. Thank you.