No.26. (10/10/03)

H.E. Mircea Geoana, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania

Thank you, Brian, for that kind introduction, and thank you for flying all the way from Dubai to introduce me. Thank you, Noel and dear friends from FPA, for inviting me to share some views. In a ballroom such as this, we should probably speak of the strategic waltz that the world and the West in particular are trying to dance at this moment. Let me start with a traditional advertising speech about my country. If someone had thought in 1989 or even in the early 1990s that Romania would become, in a relatively short period of time, a member of NATO, a staunch ally of America and a member of the European Union by 2004 and 2005, as well as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, a role which we are preparing to take on in a few months time, and basically to put our country back on track, following a most devastating dictatorship that created tremendous trauma in the very fabric of our society, well, let us say that we have come a long way. And we are very proud that we are back in our natural family, in the West and friends with America.

Having said that, our transition struggle was also extremely complex, and there were many ups and downs. That is why as Romania becomes a member of NATO and of the EU, and takes on important jobs internationally, like the Security Council as I mentioned, we are bringing to our new allies and friends in Europe and across the Atlantic a deep sense of humility and compassion about the nations and peoples surrounding us, in what we call now the Greater Middle East, from all the way in Central Asia and Afghanistan, going across the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, of course, Iraq, Israel, and up through northern Africa.

We know how difficult it is to change a society, and we know that sometimes simply a good recipe from international financial institutions is not enough to mend a society. That is why I think that countries like Romania can really bring to the table a sense of imagination and drive, of optimism with a pragmatic and realistic approach. We can go to our friends in the Arab world, to our neighbors across the Black Sea, and our friends in the Western Balkans, and say, "Listen guys, if Romania can make it, anybody can make it." This is really something that worked well when I was chairman of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe], especially with our friends across the Black Sea and in the Central Asian Caucuses. First, I would like to address the question concerning lessons of transition in Romania, and then I will get to the grand picture, which I would like to describe to you as we see it from Bucharest these days.

The first thing is that in order to be successful as a society and as an economy, to really regain a sense of optimism in a society, one needs, from our experience, what I call the 'pentagon' of five indispensable ingredients. The first one of course is liberty, and everything that goes with individual freedom and democracy. The second is social justice, the rule of law, and economic opportunity for the public, for the people and for the citizen. Democracy does not exist without that. You just don't get one without the other. The third one is something that was vastly damaged in Romania, which is civil society and civic education. And this takes a longer time to heal. The fourth one, which is very important especially as we speak of Iraq, is national dignity and pride. This is an indispensable ingredient for a nation to be successful. And the fifth and most complicated one is a great project for a society that can motivate not only the elite and leaders of the county, but also the citizens in the streets. These are the five things that we have discovered in Romania, which are indispensable for the success of a nation.

When we speak of a great project for a society, for us in Central and Eastern Europe, the option was relatively easy, because we had a natural instinct to return to the West. After we were abandoned by the West and left in the cold, it was a natural instinct for us to return. So that is why the ambition to join Europe and to join NATO and to become again a member of the Western club was the big project of society. The question is, my dear friends, what is the project of society for our friends in the Greater Middle East? We are witnessing an ideological vacuum and a philosophical imbalance between this positive message of a project of society, and the voices of fundamentalism and hatred, which are also spurred by inequality and poverty at a global level. The rest of the four, I think can be achieved. For the fifth, we still have a problem in encouraging a great national project of society for our friends in the Greater Middle East.

There was a lot of discussion about a displacement of the center of gravity of the West, shifting more to the East. People in America are speaking of a New Europe and of an Old Europe. The truth of the matter is that the center of gravity is moving towards the east and the south. And if we are speaking as Huntington spoke, about a tectonic plate of this planet, the real plate is not between the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds, but the real tectonic plate of our planet is someplace around Afghanistan, where Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Confuciust kinds of philosophies from the Far East meet. That is why it is so important for us to be successful in Afghanistan. Everything else is just a ripple effect of this fundamental, tectonic plate of our planet, which intersects there. And that is why following the dramatic change after 9/11, when the U.S. and its European allies got involved in Afghanistan and we now have some presence in the Central Asian countries, that we need to be successful in Afghanistan.

After we finish our discussion today, I am heading to the UN to take part in a ministerial meeting around Afghanistan. We have troops in Afghanistan, we have troops in Iraq, and we have thousands of troops in the Balkans. We mean business as a country, because we know how important this is that their long-term success will be our long-term success, as a country newly wed again with the West. The second issue that is extremely important, and which has had a positive impact in the last few months is an evolution of the political and strategic thinking in Europe, which moved Europe closer to the American perception of threat after 9/11. There was always a discussion about Venus and Mars, about perception of threat, in many interesting books as of late. But I have to say that in the recent months, Europe has evolved in a promising way.

Javier Solana has drafted on our behalf a security strategy for Europe. For the first time, we speak aggressively about weapons of mass destruction, about counter-proliferation, about terrorism, and about the Greater Middle East, in a way that has not been heard before. Europe is becoming more ambitious, and the fact that we are reducing the strategic gap between the perceptions of threat is a positive thing. When Romania joins the Security Council next year and also takes its rightful seat in NATO and around the European Union table, there will be one paramount, indispensable strategic vision that we will encourage and fight for over and over again. If we are to be successful in what President Bush said yesterday is the modernization of the Middle East -- which by the way is the most daunting proposition of a Western leader in two millennia, since the withdrawal of the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions of Europe, because we are basically going beyond the Judeo-Christian-Muslim split --if we are to be successful in this long term, multigenerational effort to modernize, one thing is indispensable, my dear friends. It is to try to have a minimum consensus of the West, Europe and America, on the fundamentals of our policy.

There will always be rivalry. Europe has a natural instinct and an obligation to grow as a global power, not as a rival to America, but as a true strategic partner, where we do compete in economic terms, but we also understand that we have a common job to do in the 21st Century. This is something that my country and people like myself in Central Europe who have suffered under Communism are bringing to Europe and to NATO. This is not only fresh blood, but I think, fresh dynamism. We know that divisiveness in the West is a recipe for failure for both sides. Now, let me tell you an interesting story about Romania, which is also interesting when we speak about Iraq. Even if there was lots of speculation in the press about Bush and Chirac, and Kofi Annan's speeches yesterday, speeches are only a snapshot in time. I think that all of us have an interest for Iraq to be addressed in a positive and constructive way. There is a big discussion about ownership by the Iraqis of their own nation and how fast can we do this. It is a legitimate debate. And I think that the French and the Germans, and others in Europe are right to ask this question.

Let me tell you one story about Romania in the early 1990s, when we had had started a constitutional assembly in 1990, by elections, and we decided to broadcast live on TV the debates of this crazy assembly. I was going to bed at 5:00 am every single morning. I was going to work and drinking tons of coffee to stay awake. It was a national group therapy program. We needed this. People from all paths of life, from the Diaspora, from everywhere were shouting at each other. It was a public relations mega-show, and it really started giving the feeling to the public that they could debate and discuss issues about their own destiny. Then we moved after one and a half years to draft a new constitution, we passed a referendum, and then basically for ten years we have gone in a relatively easy way from one political cycle of elections to the other. So ownership is very, very important. And this is something that relates to national pride, and to the pentagon of values that I believe are paramount for the success of a nation.

The other problem we have, and this is something we are encouraging our friends to think about in a more integrated way, is this temptation to have a piecemeal approach to the Greater Middle East. We do Afghanistan today, we do Iraq yesterday, and eventually we do Israel and Palestine the day after tomorrow. We cannot do it like that. I know it is very difficult to do it all at the same time, and I know what I am saying. It is a daunting task, but everything is interrelated. We just cannot separate these things, and that is why we believe that in the next months, Europeans and Americans have to start thinking together about a grand strategy for the Middle East, including trying to do something about our Israeli and our Palestinian colleagues over there.

There is also something interesting about the evolution of the Western institutions, and I'll say one word about where Europe is heading as we discuss the constitution of Europe. Sometimes in the U.S., people have difficulty understanding why these Europeans are spending so much time and energy on nitty-gritty discussion about constitution and institutions. This is a fundamental debate for us, and please understand that it is not an easy discussion we are having. We are giving up additional national sovereignty on the altar of this common project. We are discussing checks and balances, in a Europe of 27 countries, or even 28 if Turkey will be joining in the next few years, and with the Western Balkans, maybe 30 countries. This is a very, very delicate, sensitive, complicated process, full of repercussions. So Europe is now entering into a phase where we are basically debating the next cycle of our evolution. And there are basically two schools of thought in Europe today.

One is encouraging a very aggressive and rapid expansion of the European Union from Turkey to the Western Balkans, and for Europe to become a global player by critical mass: of population, of markets, of economic activity. Another group of people, especially around the Franco-German tandem, seem to prefer a political consolidation first, and an effort for Europe to speak with one voice, if possible, rather than going towards what they see as dilution. There is a lot of discussion in Europe today about what they call a multispeed Europe or a hardcore Europe, around the more ambitious European players and powers, especially around France and Germany. And they say the following thing: We cannot wait for all 25 or 27 or 30 to follow us on a more ambitious path towards this political integration of Europe-foreign policy, economic policy, and so on. So, who wants to come with us should join us, the rest-it's their problem.

I think this has to be resisted. Because if we are creating a Europe with multiple speeds, with different currencies and you see Sweden, Denmark, and the UK outside the euro zone, that's a big problem for Europe, especially because London is such a big financial base. We need Britain inside the euro zone if we want the euro zone to be successful in the long-term. So there is a fundamental debate in Europe about who we want to be, and about how fast we get to this higher level of political integration, which is something counterintuitive to many American friends. This also leads to the discussion about unilateralism and multilateralism. I'm not trying to find excuses for some friends of ours in Europe, but I am saying that in the last 20 or 30 years of European construction, the rule of the game was constant compromise on basically everything under debate in Europe. Because it's difficult to work with groups of six, nine, twelve, fifteen, twenty-five countries without finding everyday a compromise.

So there is a culture of compromise. There is a culture of multilevel approach that has developed over the last 50 years in Europe, which is not only a strategic option. Some people want to have a multilevel approach just to keep America at bay. But there are others in Europe who are sincere, and basically are operating like this. And they need some rules in order for the world to be run together with our American friends. What is going to happen in the upcoming years? Let me give you my forecast about the next age of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. I think that by 2015 we will be seeing the Western Balkans-Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, including Kosovo- become full members of the European and Euro-Atlantic Institutions. Some friends of mine who are more sophisticated than I am say this will mean that about 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we will have the whole of Europe basically integrated. In fact they say that after 2014, there will be a new financial perspective, a new budget, and that we can look forward to bringing all these countries in. Like always, NATO will expand before the EU. NATO expanded in 1997, in 2002 and 2003. Europe will follow.

The big question for Romania is what to do with our friends more to the East. We have the Republic of Moldova on our eastern border, and it is a small country with lots of problems, two-thirds of them are Romanians, so we care about these guys. We have Ukraine, a big player, but also the Caucuses, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and of course Turkey. So this is a fundamental piece of our next generation of enlargement processes. Can we really bring all these countries into NATO and into the European Union? I think this is doable. And I think we should try to get into that position, because if we want to demonstrate that our common values make sense for everybody, they should make sense also for our surroundings. So Romania will fight for that. The doors of NATO and the EU will not be shut after we get into these institutions.

Of course, the key discussion is about the relationship between the West and Russia, because I do not want to get into the Greater Middle East scheme without speaking a little bit about Russia. Russia continues to be, despite its economic weaknesses and democratic credentials, a hugely important country. It seems today that Russia has decided that it is in her tactical advantage to be in closer cooperation with the West. I personally believe that in Moscow today there are a couple of schools of thought about the way to go about this. There is a traditional group of people who say that getting closer to Europe will bring a counterweight to American hegemony. There is a temptation to go very, very aggressively towards Europe, short of membership, but nevertheless toward a vast integrated economic space between Russia and the rest of Europe-which probably will happen in the next few decades.

There is another group of people thinking that the only way for Russia to really become a global player again is to become a junior global partner of America, with all the difficulties that might come from that. And of course, there is a tiny group of hardcore, diehard conservatives who basically say: Let's wait for the West-Europe or America- to make a faux pas, and then we'll benefit and play in-between. But there is a big debate in Russia about how to go about interaction with the West. For Romania, it is vitally important for Russia to be democratic, to be predictable, and to really come into a structured, strategic relationship with the West-both Europe and the United States. This would be the best news for Romania in many centuries. So we'll be working in that direction as much as we possibly can.

One final word about where I believe the points of convergence will be and probably differences between the two sides of the Atlantic, because this is a subject that I think is dominant and decisive for the grander scheme, which is modernizing the Greater Middle East. I think that despite some attempts in Europe to develop a military structure independent from NATO and the United States, Europe will ultimately understand -and this is the view coming from Bucharest-that hooking up to NATO in an aggressive and positive way can really become for Europe a vehicle, a propeller, a rocket for Europe to become sooner a global player, because we lack in Europe the military muscle of NATO through its American connection. I also believe that NATO is gradually getting into full swing for what I would call its global vocation, and the fact that NATO is now in Afghanistan, and I don't exclude NATO becoming more involved in Iraq or elsewhere, even in the Israeli-Palestinian discussions in the next years. This is a major revolution for NATO. I also believe that Europe will become more integrated, speaking with a more united voice. And I believe that we will be seeing a more balanced transatlantic relationship as Europe engages in more strategic work and economic reconstruction with the United States.

So, the grand picture is like this, to simplify the whole thing. I think that the newcomers to Europe and NATO are a net added value, and I say this with all due respect to everybody, knowing the huge potential of our nations. We are not that numerous, probably, but with Poland and Romania, with allies like this, I think we can do things together. The second thing is that we have to engage extremely rapidly on a common vision about the future of the Greater Middle East, where Europe and America do design a common strategic division of labor and also a joint alliance with return on investment for everybody. You cannot have return on investment only on one side, with the other acting only as the cash machine to pay for reconstruction. This is not going to work. The third thing is to be able to produce and to encourage from inside the Muslim nations mainly a philosophical, ideological, positive proposition. This is the fourth dimension of my pentagon allegory at the beginning of my presentation. And this is the most daunting task. We cannot impose on them our democracy and our values. It has to come from the inside. It has to be nurtured and harnessed by us. We have to get the young elites to come and be trained in America and in Europe, in Romania. We have to send our NGOs over there to be able to help, but if there is not national ownership, we will not have national pride, and the reconstruction will not last. We'll see problems popping up every other year in a different corner of this great vicinity of ours.

So, I'm coming to you to speak as a friend of the Association, inviting you to visit the country before it becomes a boring Western nation, fully. We have ballrooms, don't worry, so we can provide something like this - the cuisine is also good in Romania. But I tell you that we are profoundly interested in this intellectual and strategic debate that your organization is so well prepared to contribute to. I want you to know that you have in myself, in my colleagues, and also in the new elites of Central and Eastern Europe, partners that really want to be part of the game, and I think that's really something worthy of discussion. So just like before a ride, when you go to Disneyland, hook up-buckle up-we'll have a century that will be quite a rodeo. I hope it will be successful. Thank you very much.

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