Debate: Challenges and prospects for multilateral weapons of mass destruction arms control and disarmament regimes
Date: MONDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2021
Speaker: Sven Mikser
Country: Hungary
Language: EN

The report on WMD, arms control and disarmament regimes that we are going to vote on this week focuses on key opportunities as well as challenges in this regard. It emphasises the proactive role that the European Union, as a key donor of relevant international organisations, has been playing and continues to play in the global non—proliferation and disarmament efforts. Yet, despite all those great efforts, the Europeans have recently had to watch, with growing alarm, the crumbling of some key elements of the post—Cold War arms control architecture. This process, unless swiftly reversed, is bound to have a profoundly negative impact on European, as well as global, security. Over the past few years, we have witnessed the termination of the INF Treaty following Russia’s violations of the terms of that treaty, and we have seen the departure of the US and Russia from the Open Skies Treaty. We have struggled as Europeans to keep the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, from completely falling apart. Today the jury’s still out when it comes to the future of that important agreement. The decision by the US and Russia to extend by another five years the New START Treaty was indeed a rare piece of positive news in an otherwise rather gloomy cycle. The report insists on the need to revive our efforts to reverse that negative cycle and to ensure universal adherence to existing, as well as future, disarmament and non—proliferation treaties. It is imperative that any talks about the possible successor treaty to the INF include all countries that are in possession of, or are developing, systems that would be limited or banned by the treaty. A notable case here is China’s rising military power. The report reaffirms its support to the JCPOA and it commends the central role played by the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. It calls for the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and for the start of negotiations on the so—called Fissile Material Cut—off Treaty. The report also covers the loosening of global ethical norms against chemical weapons, a negative trend exemplified by the use of banned chemical agents in the Syrian war and against the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. And it points to the lack of a binding verification mechanism for compliance with a Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. But as already mentioned, the bulk of the report is naturally devoted to nuclear weapons. So let me conclude by reiterating my deep conviction that the Nuclear Non—Proliferation Treaty, or the NPT, must remain the cornerstone of the international efforts at nuclear non—proliferation and disarmament. The NPT, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, is the only nuclear weapons control treaty that brings together almost the entire international community and also includes among its members all the five recognised nuclear weapon states. The upcoming NPT review conference, long delayed by the pandemic, provides us with an opportunity to give a new impetus to nuclear disarmament efforts, and we must not let that opportunity to go to waste. We must also refrain from initiatives that might deviate from or weaken the goals of the NPT. I do sincerely believe that while we all share the long term goal of living in a world free of nuclear weapons, this objective can only be reached if we approach it in a realistic and reciprocal manner.  Finally, I would like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs and our advisors for their constructive cooperation.