Mr President, the EU’s common foreign and security policy is slowly starting to take shape. Good intentions are being translated into increasingly concrete activities, and the development of the rapid reaction force is progressing at a steady pace. Hopefully it will be possible to deploy this force for the first time in Macedonia. Despite everything, however, even the bringing together of a force of approximately 2 000 troops remains an arduous task which the European Union cannot yet achieve without NATO, something which brings with it the necessary problems. In itself, cooperation with NATO is to be welcomed, because it allows us to be operational more quickly, but it is also a complicating factor, as is evident from the talks with Turkey. In the longer term, the European Union must strive towards total autonomy where the deployment of the rapid reaction force is concerned. The so far non-existent military capacity must therefore be developed as a matter of urgency. The European Union is not NATO, and NATO is not the United Nations. We must not switch roles. It is not the EU’s ambition to be a collective defence organisation. The EU is not a military superpower, and puts the emphasis first and foremost on a multilateral approach to international problems via the UN and other international organisations. Recently, striking discrepancies between the European Union and the US have come to light. These are mainly due to differing views on security. The common foreign and security policy is, in fact, the manifestation of Europe’s history over the past 100 years. The cooperation model is paramount. Far less emphasis is placed on the military instrument than is the case in the United States, and this is not simply due to the lack of military superpower status. We have recognised the relative value of the instrument, and are therefore placing far more emphasis on the use of civil means, including diplomacy and economic cooperation. Not for nothing have conflict prevention and conflict solution become mainstays of our policy. The enlargement of the European Union, but also the Balkans policy, are illustrations of this. However, it also explains the renewed focus on fighting poverty, and not simply as a result of 11 September. Such policy is inherently multilateral and also explains why we react to Sharon’s military approach with such horror. We know from personal, painful experience that problems only escalate as a result. The US sees things differently in many cases. Having military power and its possible use are paramount. If necessary, we will go it alone, we hear them say. This is illustrated by the US’ views on arms control, or the threatening language in the direction of Iraq. Needless to say, we support the desire to stop the distribution of weapons of mass destruction, first of all in Iraq. This is what we have the United Nations for, and the EU must help make a policy possible. We should certainly not exclude force, but violence is not the obvious choice. A kind of artificial distribution of tasks has taken place between the European Union and the United States. They use their military power, and often determine policy in this way, while the European Union often ends up picking up the pieces; at least, this is often how it appears. This is untenable in the long run. To us, civil power is more important than military power, and this should become the core of the transatlantic dialogue.

Political group: PSE