Examination of Witnesses (Questions 217-219)
Dr Javier Solana
30 JUNE 2008
Q217 Chairman: Secretary-General, we
have to begin by giving you our warmest congratulations on yesterday
evening. [Victory of Spain at the European Championship of football].
We share your personal pleasure.
Dr Solana: Thank you very
much. I got several SMSs from London and I do not know what the
significance of that is!
Q218 Chairman: Given we did not have
a team we were very glad that the right team won! Secretary-General,
we are, as usual, very grateful that you have found time to see
us, particularly after you have had a busy time recently. As you
know, we are doing a study on the way in which the European Security
Strategy is going to be reviewed and the way it has been applied.
We know that, unfortunately, because 10 days ago the European
Council was rather busy dealing with one or two other problems
you were not able to discuss it with them on that occasion as
I am sure you would have liked to do. Nonetheless, we would be
very grateful if we could raise one or two issues today. I suppose
the first question, if you would not mind, would be to ask how
do you feel you will be able to take forward your work on reviewing
the European Security Strategy and will the fact that you were
not able to discuss it with the European Council 10 days ago hinder
that in any way? What role do you expect from the French Presidency?
Of course, we have read your speech to the European Parliament
where you talked to them about it and this morning we were talking
to people in the Commission. It is obviously very important that
although this is an extremely important document which this time,
as last time, you will lead, it is accepted and there is a sense
of ownership throughout the whole of the European Union, including
the Commission and the Parliament. We would be very interested
to hear your views as to how you see the review being taken forward.
Dr Solana: Thank you very much for coming
and for this opportunity to discuss these important issues. Let
me start by saying that today is the last day of the Slovenian
Presidency and tomorrow will be the first day of the French Presidency.
But I will not have the certainty that I used to have before a
new Presidency starts, to tell you the truth. That has nothing
to do with France but more the outcome of the referendum in Ireland.
I say that because, as you know, the analysis of the referendum
is still being done, including the effect that some debates may
have in the coming months. As you know, one of the issues that
had not been discussed much in the campaign in Ireland was the
question related to security. At this moment I do not know exactly
what the repercussions of that debate in Ireland will be and the
result of the referendum on the French Presidency. Next Monday
I will be going to Paris and I will see President Sarkozy to try
to fine tune how these issues are going to be tackled in the French
Presidency. In any case, let us suppose that the rhythm will be
the same. As you said in your introductory remarks, it was supposed
to be discussed in the report given by me to the European Council
but there was no time to do it and nobody wanted to enter into
that on that day. As I said, next Monday I will be visiting the
French. I will be there tomorrow but it will be symbolic with
raising the flag and having dinner with the Government. Supposing
that nothing changes, the idea is by the European Council of October,
and as you can imagine the agenda of that meeting will be slightly
different because the consequences of the Irish referendum will
be discussed, there will be another report that I will have to
make to the Council. What is it we intend to do? First, we think
that the Strategy is a document that has been very useful. It
is five years old and it is a document that is useful for the
European Union. It is a non-bureaucratic document, written in
a much clearer manner, not with paragraphs coming from different
countries. It is a document that comes wrapped. That was not easy
to do, as you can imagine. For those who know how we work you
will know that it was very difficult to do it in that manner.
I intend to continue doing it in that manner, to have a document
that can be read easily. On the issues that have been agreed already,
defining the challenges, defining the threats, et cetera, I would
like to touch it as little as possible. We should add some new
elements where the document has gaps which are important. One
is energy, which was not dealt with in 2003 in the manner that
we are dealing with it today, energy security for instance. The
issue related to climate change has to be tackled in much more
detail. From 2003 until today we have added some action plans
which I think will be more important that can change the basic
trend of the document. My idea, and that was agreed in the PSC,
is to change what is necessary and to add what is necessary, but
not to change what is not necessary and leave it as it is as much
as possible, and try to work in the same manner as before. Apart
from energy security and climate change, we have to look at other
challenges that we have, for instance the development of military
capabilities in the world, which is another thing that is difficult
to touch upon but we have to mention it. The other thing that
I would like to touch upon a little bit more is anti-terrorist
capabilities. I have to convince our friends in France that is
something that would be useful to develop more. There is no need
to go into all of the details but make a call on the importance
of capabilities militarily and also in general. The other thing
I would like to develop more is the co-operation between civilian
and military, and military and civilian. That is something which
is necessary. We have done a lot but we have to underline that
part and do more. That is one of the challenges that we have in
front of us. Many of the Member States, the UK for instance, are
doing a lot nationally and we have to see how we can handle that
also in the EU. The other thing we have to look at is the question
related to problems that are not manmade but nature made such
as crises that may come from other sources and we have to see
how we can co-ordinate better and give a line in that direction
in the Security Strategy. One of the criticisms that can be made
is that it is not quite a new strategy, it does not say exactly
how to do it. We define the challenges but we say less about how
to go about handling them. Some of this issue we will have to
review. I think some difficulty may come with a possible debate
on Russia. It is very difficult to tackle it well, to put it in
written form. I sense we may have some differences of opinion
inside the European Union on how to define and tackle Russia.
That is a tricky point and we will have to see how we do that.
Apart from that, I do not see any big difficulty. The Commission
has demanded that I co-operate with the Commission and we are
doing that. With the Parliament, I gave a little bit of information
on that on the day you mentioned and I will try to maintain that.
It is a document that has to be assumed by everybody. But the
ownership is that of the European Council and the Member States
will have to deal with security as the most important first category.
It is good to have the Commission engaged and to inform the Parliament
as much as we can, but I do not think we should have big debates
in the Parliament to get it approved or something like that. That
would not be a good idea.
Q219 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Can
I ask how you envisage the documentation to be done on this because
clearly there is much to say about capabilities, action plans
and implementation, and presumably that should not be in the Strategy
itself but in a separate document.
Dr Solana: What we have done so far on
non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is we have—
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