Hoge Vertegenwoordiger Ashton over EU-beleid ten aanzien van Hoorn van Afrika en Mali (en)
EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels, 7 November 2012 A
Remarks by High Representative Catherine Ashton i in Subcommittee
on Security and Defence (SEDE) of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), Brussels, 7 November 2012
Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today! It really is important that we spend time talking about our Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). I have just come from my regular meeting with the Secretary General of NATO. I attach great importance to what we do in this area and I know that in the European Parliament there are strong advocates of the work that we are doing and also of the opportunities that we need to take to enhance our work. I don't see criticism as a negative thing, I think it is really important that you are able to push forward in these areas where you believe there is more that can be done. I don't make an excuse by saying that we are at the beginning. I do say that the more we are able to work together, the more we are able to push forward on these issues that are really important
The operations that we have got lie at the heart of our CSDP policy and I think in this year we can point to some dynamic developments. We have got the missions in Sudan and in the Horn of Africa and as you have said, Mr President, in the Sahel. We are working on the crisis management concepts for two potential new missions: a military mission in Mali and a civilian mission in Libya that will focus on border management particularly
To answer your question on Mali - on the meeting of the 15th of October we were invited by the Foreign Affairs Council to work on a crisis management concept and I will be presenting this to a meeting of foreign and defence ministers on the 19th November. One of the possibilities that we are looking at is to extend our mission EUCAP Sahel Niger to other countries of the region
I would say though - and I have said this so many times to foreign and defence ministers and when I am talking with our colleagues who are operationally engaged in theatre - that we should not forget that we have to finish what we have started with on-going missions that we have. I think here especially of the work that we are doing in the Balkans. And, as some of you know, linking that to the work that we are doing on trying to find political solutions on the way forward I think we can point to some very clear results - and I have tried in how I have steered our approach to CSDP to look for real results
So when I think about the work that we are doing in our missions in the Horn of Africa, I can point to real results. In 2010 we saw 47 ships that were pirated off the coast of Somalia. By 2011 that was 25 and so far this year it is 5. It's five too many, but the trend is in the right direction. There were about 176 confirmed attack attempts to highjack in 2011 and only 35 so far this year. By the end of this year our training mission for Somalia will have trained 3000 soldiers. And they make a real and recognisable contribution on the ground in Somalia where the government has been able to take control of large parts of the country
Colleagues, I went to see for myself in Mogadishu what is happening there. I went and met the commanders of the missions and the forces there to discuss with them how they saw the missions and their effectiveness. So there is real success, there are sustainable results. But I would argue that it has to be part of a broader strategy and that is what the Lisbon Treaty and the post-Lisbon world is all about. And I am very pleased to see that this is a theme that comes through in the report
I have talked about Somalia and we have invested very heavily on the political front - my engagement, the engagement of colleagues on the ground, of our new EUSR Alex Rondos. As I have said when I visited Mogadishu and the region in August, it was very interesting to discuss with all of the commanders of our 3 operations what they thought we should do; each one of them said that we have very important missions, they need to be properly resourced, need to be understood for what they can do, but absolutely vital in the context of a broader approach
Stopping piracy at sea needs to go hand in hand with preventing piracy from happening on the land, the solutions that will bring the end of the fighting and the war in Somalia. When I was talking with the women in particularly who were leading the changes in Somalia, they told me: "21 years - we have had enough. You have been with us all the way, but what we need now is sustainable ways in which we are able to ensure the development that will move our country forward." And doing all of the things that we do is also about working closely with others, for example the operation SHIELD with NATO in that particular action where we have ATALANTA
Finding the way to move from liberation to development to a country that is able to stand by itself -now when I talk about that, I am not side-lining our CSDP missions or trying to instrumental!se development policy or humanitarian aid. On the contrary - it is about using all of the resources that we have and being consistent about the way we do it, so that we recognise, as we do now in the Sahel, the multiplicity of the problems, from hunger to a lack of development, to a lack of government engagement, to the failure to provide basic services and education and health, to the recognition that there are those who wish to use extremism and terrorism, or the drugs trade that is operational and partly linked into what is happening in that part of the world
So when you look at the breadth of the challenge, you need to put in place an approach that is going to address each of those needs - what we do in our CSDP missions is a vital component of that strategy, and linked into that conflict prevention mediation. It's an area that I feel passionate about, an area where we have to do more, and an area where, if it's decided that we have a separate institution, I will support that, providing I can draw on its resources. Tonight, as you know, we have the next meeting of the Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo which I will host; we also try and move forward with Iran. So I understand very well for my own role the importance of trying to do more on conflict prevention and mediation, and the help and support that frankly we need to be able to do that. And again the European Parliament plays an incredibly important role in understanding that and in enabling us to do that. And I want to see as build up the capacity to do that internally and of course externally
I want to talk a little bit if I might, Mr President, about capabilities, because CSDP allows us to act but we have to have the capabilities to do it - our Member States provide those and we all know the consequences and challenges of the financial crisis, its effect on national budgets and on defence capabilities. That's why I put huge emphasis on pooling and sharing, working with our colleagues in NATO on their concept of smart defence, but in what we do following a two-pronged approach. First of all, concrete projects - air to air refuelling, a huge issue as we've discovered during the conflict in Libya. Secondly, developing the whole approach of pooling and sharing to be more systematic, so it's part of the national planning processes, while also making sure that that fits well with wider European policies, research and development, dual use, the way that we work with the defence industry
All of this is crucial to being more able to use our resources effectively. This seems of course very prominent, Mr Danjean, in your report, and both of these topics are on the forthcoming meeting of the Council of Ministers in Defence format on 19th of November. All of this is vital if we're going to be as effective as I think we wish to be, but even more effective than we are now
And we have to make sure that we evolve our work in the global context. For example, there is a growing interest from other countries, in particularly from Asia partners - India, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and China - to engage with us in a security and defence dialogues. When I travel to these countries I meet with their Defence Ministers, with their National Security Advisors, looking at how we can cooperate in a concrete way. We have to be confident and build on that engagement so it becomes part of our strategy for how we ensure security in the world
And as you know, we're very keen to see this raised at the level of the European Council. I'm delighted that President Van Rompuy has put that on the agenda and we will prepare for that discussion, beginning with our next meeting in November. It's very important, too, that we look at all of this in the right context. We have to be clear about the challenges that we face, we have to be clear about ensuring that we have the resources to act, we have to be clear about the context in which we're working and we have to be clear that we're operating in theatre on the basis of an approach that is going to bring not just immediate solutions, but long term solutions. Again, as I've described it, the comprehensive approach
We need to marshal to our aide all of the different elements that we have, getting cleverer, smarter about the resources that we have -through the European Defence Agency, developing new ways of collaboration, working closely with the defence industry, making sure that we have strong ideas on growth and innovation, and working with third parties, countries with whom we have a common interest on particular projects in order that we can be collaborative in that. So just a very brief run-through of the way that I see it, but for me we have to keep moving on this, we have to keep pushing as hard as we can to recognize that we have an important role to play and ensuring peace and stability for our people in the European Union and in tackling some of the challenges that we need to face
Thank you