President Barroso's Speech on 'The European Union and the Emerging World Order'

Monsieur le Secrétaire général,
Monsieur le Ministre,
Messieurs les Ambassadeurs,
Mesdames et Messieurs les Membres du Parlement européen,
Mesdames et Messieurs,

C'est un honneur d'être aujourd'hui parmi vous : décideurs politiques, représentants de la société civile, intellectuels et académiques éminents, et étudiants, engagés dans l'étude de la construction européenne et de l'ordre mondial. Permettez-moi tout d'abord de vous souhaiter la bienvenue et de vous remercier d'être venus aussi nombreux des cinq continents.

Un remerciement particulier à M. Boutros Ghali et à M. Mayor qui nous feront l'honneur de prononcer un discours d'ouverture.

Cette assemblée est unique dans son brassage de cultures et de sensibilités religieuses, politiques et culturelles. L'Action Jean Monnet nous réunit régulièrement autour d'espaces de débat, et chaque conférence ECSA-Monde a représenté une avancée dans la réflexion sur les sujets retenus.

Aujourd'hui, nous nous trouvons à la croisée des chemins. En effet, nous assistons à une vaste mobilisation internationale autour du thème de l'ordre mondial. Cette situation exige de nous d'être ambitieux au cours de cette conférence.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

The issues that you will discuss in this conference are of great relevance. They are indeed cornerstones of the new world order as it is currently emerging.

Over the last fifteen years, we have seen enormous tectonic shifts in the international system. The end of the Cold War has produced great chances to strengthen democracies and market economies worldwide.

At the same time, crises in different parts of the world, including right at our doorstep, remind us of the importance of creating a robust European foreign policy.

The end of the bipolar system has brought about very serious challenges. We are witnessing greater instability culminating in the emergence of "failed states" as incubators of regional crises. We see ideological radicalization and terrorism as the "privatization of war". Poverty and environmental degradation are also phenomena on the dark side of globalization. These multiple challenges mean that the distinction between what is "internal" and what is "external" is becoming less relevant by the day.

In the light of these issues, Europe cannot be passive or - even worse - complacent. We must not rest on the laurels of our great accomplishments over the last fifty years. Europe cannot be an island of peace in a sea of instability. We have to take our responsibility in an interdependent world.

It will be one of the key priorities during my mandate as President of the European Commission to play a constructive role in managing the structural changes in the global order, together with our international partners.

I want to share three basic propositions on the EU's role in the emerging world order this morning: First, the European Union is undoubtedly a global player.

Second, the European Union pursues a specific foreign policy philosophy which I would term "effective multilateralism".

Thirdly, the EU, thanks to its specific nature, disposes of a wide range of foreign policy instruments which are particularly suited to respond to the challenges.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

First and foremost, the European Union is a global player.

The EU forms the largest integrated market and has the largest GDP worldwide. We are a key player in global trade and the largest donor of international assistance. We are a crucial partner in international financial relations, not least thanks to the Euro. We have a very dense network of bilateral treaty relations which literally spans the globe and promotes worldwide reforms. We are a great sponsor of human rights. We are engaged in a growing number of crisis management operations around the world.

Above all, our founding principles of freedom and democracy, market-economy and solidarity constitute a pole of attraction and a positive reference for many people in the world. The EU thus serves as an anchor of stability in its neighbourhood and far beyond.

The European Union is also the champion of multilateralism, and this brings me to my second basic point.

The EU stands at the forefront of the development of a rule-based world order, which is one of the main themes of your conference. Indeed, multilateralism lies at the very basis of the international system as we see it. One of the salient features of the new world order is that borders matter less. We live in an age of inter-connectedness.

Therefore, the main challenges of today's world order in flux cannot be dealt with alone. Multilateral solutions are indispensable to manage globalization.

Our goal is to work through international institutions and international law to improve global governance. In particular, this means a continued commitment to work through the United Nations family as the pivot of the multilateral system. This commitment is clearly enshrined in our European Security Strategy adopted last year.

Our commitment to effective multilateralism is not just a rhetorical profession of faith. Nor does it mean that there would be no need to reform those institutions which have served as the bedrock of the international system since 1945.

On the contrary, it means to actively reform and develop multilateral fora and promote a forward-looking common agenda. It also means taking the agreed global rules seriously, whether they concern the preservation of peace and security, the limitation of carbon emissions or international trade.

Allow me a word on our transatlantic relations: When we speak about the global system in the new century, our relations with the United States are fundamental.

The global challenges cannot be tackled efficiently if the EU and the U.S. disagree. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the relationship between the United States and Europe constitutes the world's strongest, most comprehensive and strategically most important partnership. There is much more that unites us than that divides us, in political, economic and societal terms.

Consequently, we have a window of opportunity to reinvigorate the transatlantic relationship. Today's international problems are simply too complex to "go it alone".

But if the EU wants to be an active, equal partner of the U.S., we need to further strengthen our European foreign policy. Working on a stronger EU and a stronger transatlantic partnership is not a contradiction in terms - on the contrary: The latter depends on the former. Hence, even constructive criticism is not a substitute for creating a more assertive EU role on the world stage. We need to get our own act together and strengthen the EU's external role.

This also means forging strategic partnerships with Russia, China, Japan, India and other key players such as our friends in Latin America, with all of whom we will substantially deepen our political and commercial relations. Finally, it means rendering multilateralism more effective so that cooperation can deliver palpable results for our citizens.

Our commitment to global governance is also a result of our own successful experience in Europe. We have proven ourselves that cooperation and integration, based on strong institutions, pay off - both politically and economically. They can even overcome deep historical divisions. European integration has thus not only transformed the very fabric of our own continent. It has also shaped our European foreign policy.

Thirdly, we already have a multifaceted set of instruments at our disposal, the aggregate strength of which goes far beyond the sum of its parts.

Our policy of EU enlargement has been the key in overcoming the heavy legacy of the Cold War in Europe. The gravitational pull of the EU membership perspective has accomplished the structural modernization of several post-Communist societies and thus re-shaped the European order. This is a foreign policy feat of historical proportions that we should not underestimate. In addition, enlargement is an ongoing venture that will bring further countries into the European mainstream.

But enlargement is not just an internal process. It also propels our Union into a stronger international position.

The accompanying process of the European Neighbourhood Policy is our offer to share the benefits of enlargement with a broad arc of neighbouring regions for which the membership perspective is not on the agenda. This ring of friends ranges from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus through the Near East all along the Mediterranean rim. We have the opportunity and a historic responsibility to build on the successful experience of our Partnership and Cooperation Agreements to the East and the Barcelona Process in the Mediterranean. In this way the EU can project stability into our near abroad and tackle our joint challenges, from political instability to economic issues and migration.

Since these regions include a number of current and potential crisis spots, our neighbourhood policy has a strong security-related rationale. For instance, we will employ the instruments of our neighbourhood policy to help resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

Furthermore, the EU has a fully integrated external trade policy. International trade will be at the forefront of international relations over the coming years. Therefore, completing the Doha Round of world trade negotiations is a key task for the European Commission.

International trade is one of the bloodstreams of our international system. By liberalizing our exchanges in a rule-based context, notably in the World Trade Organization, we create the conditions for fair trade and stabilize global economic governance.

A closely related goal is enhancing the effectiveness of our generous development assistance. We should use our leverage in this field even more strongly to help our partners, particularly in Africa, to achieve structural reforms, in order to redress the root causes of many conflicts.

For the future, I want the European Commission to place even greater emphasis on human security, in areas such as stopping the proliferation of small arms, tackling the role of children in armed conflicts, fighting human trafficking and improving conflict prevention and democratization. A foreign policy that would not try to alleviate the plight of the individual would miss its point. This will also necessitate greater EU activities in the field of civilian crisis management for which we will draw on our various instruments and render them even more operational.

One issue to which I will attach great importance as Commission President is to sharpen the external dimension of many of our internal EU policies. Two of the key features of the international order which I sketched above are its multifaceted nature and the blurred distinction between internal and external problems. Consequently, it will be essential for the EU to bring the strong external side of its internal policies to full fruition. For example, who would deny the critical importance of an international energy policy, an international environment policy or of a strong European stance on international crime?

Finally, we are in the process of strengthening our European Security and Defence Policy. Security-related challenges remain relevant in the new world order. Therefore, our foreign policy needs the backing of military instruments. Crisis management tasks stand at the core of this policy.

In short: Europe is already well-equipped to face its new tasks. There are not many international actors who possess this breadth and depth of instruments. One of my goals as President of the Commission, with the support namely of External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, is to increase the coherence between these instruments, to strengthen our European message and to improve our effectiveness on the ground.

The EU Constitution will provide further impetus for the EU's role in international relations. In addition to having an EU Foreign Minister, who will also be Vice-President of the European Commission for External Relations and who will chair the External Relations Council, we are currently laying the basis for a European External Action Service. This service will combine the strengths of the European Commission, the Council Secretariat and Member States. It will be instrumental in improving the coherence and visibility of the EU's foreign policy on the ground, notably through our network of Delegations which will become EU Delegations. Still, institutional improvements alone will not do. Most fundamentally, we need to muster clear political will to act.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Let me touch upon a key challenge of the 21st century: The threat of international terrorism. This is the ugly face of globalization. It uses the advantages of the information age to attack its very foundations - our freedoms.

We must be very determined in countering these atavistic acts committed against us. But we must not lose sight of those democratic and legal principles that lie at the very basis of our society and prosperity either. We must not only fight terrorism, we must also counter its perverse logic.

Consequently, we need to tackle the ideological and social root causes that motivate individuals to commit such heinous acts. Only a two-pronged strategy can be successful. It will therefore take long-term commitment and political stamina to nation building and market economic reforms within crisis regions.

We need to cut the supply lines of demagogues, and we need to break the joint economic backbone of international terrorism and crime, the dividing lines of which are increasingly blurred.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Let me conclude: The EU is a global player, and we need to take that responsibility. We must be active in shaping the emerging world order and strengthen rule-based international governance.

Europe has a specific contribution to make. It is my goal to strengthen the European Union as a civilian power. We want to project peace, democracy and market economic principles abroad. This will be the key challenge for the years to come.

We have the instruments at hand to make a real difference. Let us do so and the European Union will live up to the expectations that both our citizens and international partners put into us.

Thank you for your attention.

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