I am grateful for this invitation to address you tonight. It is a privilege to be able to share with such a distinguished audience a few thoughts on the current international situation — a situation of great complexity, full of uncertainty, changing rapidly and offering many political and moral challenges.

I have been asked to speak about the European response to the new threats. A coherent response depends on how these threats are defined. I will therefore begin by reflecting a little on their nature. I will then identify a few essential points of Europe’s position regarding these matters.

Since the end of the cold war, the concept of security has been defined more broadly, but also more diffusely, in order to encompass not only threats to physical or territorial integrity but also those resulting from global problems such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, environmental degradation, the spread of contagious diseases or even demographic pressure and under-development. On the other hand, a new emphasis has been given to threats coming from non-State actors, such as international terrorism and organised crime.

This wider approach does not of course cancel the classic realm of relations among States. Rivalries between States, antagonistic interests, or ideological and territorial conflicts that can lead to serious crises — as is the current case between Israel and the Palestinians or between India and Pakistan — continue to exist, as they always have. Furthermore, even in old and stabilised States, ethnic tensions sometimes degenerate into violence and civil war.

However, if we wish to identify what is new in the post-cold war international order, if our aim is to find new trends leading to new types of threats, then I believe we must turn to the dialectic between the State and globalisation and the crises that may arise therefrom.

We can start by noting the existence of powerful, multiple and uncontrollable transnational networks with no central command. Some are legal — for example, economic and financial networks or electronic communications networks, like CNN and the Internet. Others are illegal, such as terrorist networks or criminal organisations, dedicated to traffics of every kind and money laundering.

The exercise of power by sovereign States is conditioned and, in some cases, threatened by the influence of these networks. Internally, on the one hand, the decision-making autonomy of States is increasingly restricted by market based global economic processes. Internationally, on the other hand, there are a number of problems that can only find solutions through concerted responses of the international community, which have been long in coming. In other words, both nationally and internationally, there appears to be a crisis of governability.

Although these difficulties are common to all States, each nation’s capacity to deal with them varies widely. Many developing States have neither the political structures nor the administrative and economic resources to handle, simultaneously, the challenges of globalisation and their own enormous internal problems. Subject to powerful outside constraints, pressured by the weight of their external debt, battling with a demographic explosion concentrated in the cities, with huge unemployment levels and often divided by ethnic tensions and conflicts, these States are increasingly weak and inoperative.

There is a growing number of States, not only in Africa but elsewhere, that are incapable of performing even their most basic functions – controlling their territories, maintaining public order, guaranteeing adequate living conditions for their citizens – or that perform them at the lowest level and with growing difficulties.

In some cases, the result is the disintegration of the State, causing situations of anarchy that provoke humanitarian catastrophes. In other cases the result is heightened political or ethnic tension, leading to civil war. Even when the State carries on functioning, it does so with extremely high levels of corruption.

This type of situations has international repercussions. When a State cannot fulfil its basic functions, either because it is incapable to do so or because its legitimacy is no longer accepted by one or more groups of its population, normally the result is violence. States in these situations generate and export instability and create favourable conditions for terrorist and criminal organisations to set up operations on their territory. Most times these act on their own account, beyond the reach of the authorities. In other cases, however, they act with the connivance and complicity of their host States.

The case of Afghanistan is to a great extent paradigmatic of the dangers that can be caused by chaos and prolonged civil war, and the difficulties of the rebuilding process.

If the crisis is followed by a military intervention, as was the case in Bosnia, Kosovo or Afghanistan, the aftermath of intervention requires the mobilisation of the international community for increasingly varied and expensive tasks in the areas of humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and the reconstruction of a legitimate and effective political authority. In the absence of military intervention, as was the case, for example, in Rwanda, the crisis is prolonged and tends to spread to neighbouring countries.

I do not wish to enter into an argument on the political and moral criteria that should be used to decide whether or not to intervene, nor on the debate concerning the forms and requirements of said intervention. I believe, however, that the experience of the 90s indicates that, despite the costs involved, timely intervention is preferable to a passive attitude.

A provisional assessment of these interventions leads us to think that not all the experiences of what can, for convenience’s sake, be called "nation building", have been negative. Despite all the difficulties. I believe that the examples of Bosnia and, in particular, of East Timor have been successful.

In these fields, European countries are already playing a fundamental role, supplying troops for the various peacekeeping and reconstruction operations in progress, both within and outside Europe, and financing them through the European Union and bilaterally.

Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the international community and the United Nations will find it difficult to deal with all cases where intervention could be called for. We must acknowledge that intervention as a way of putting an end to declared crises is a policy of last resort. Instead, our aim should be to prevent and avoid these crises. It is certainly easier to enunciate this principle than to conceive and apply an effective preventive diplomacy. But I do believe that that is the main goal of the actions carried out by Europe and the European Union in today’s world.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

During the 90s the discourse on new threats was carried out in a relatively favourable international climate. The areas of crisis, for instance in the Balkans, the Caucasus, or Central and West Africa, were relatively localised. Although causing serious affront to universally enshrined values, and thus providing sufficient justification for an intervention by the international community, they did not appear to represent a direct threat to the security of Europe and of the Euro-Atlantic community as a whole.

Similarly, the international terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al Qaida, against the United States’ embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and North American military installations in Saudi Arabia, although considerably ambitious, did not appear in the eyes of the public as very different from others in the past. Because we had not been struck in a catastrophic way, international terrorism was considered more a potential rather than an immediate threat.

September 11 completely changed that perception. It demonstrated that international terrorism can be as grave a danger as an act of war, forcing us to confront the threat it represents. Following the attacks on New York and Washington, we are obliged to seriously consider the threat that terrorist organisations may have access to weapons of mass destruction. Thus, the issues of non-proliferation and the control of weapons of mass destruction have now gained even greater urgency.

Europe’s solidarity with the United States in the fight against international terrorism was never in question, nor could it ever be. I will not therefore recall the many forms it took. Solidarity with the United States, however, does not stop Europe from having its own perspective on these matters. From the very first moment there was a general feeling in Europe that the response to September 11 would have to be given at several levels, Military and police action, though required, would not be enough.

Naturally, the first responsibility lies at national level. There can be no tolerance towards States that connive with international terrorism and organised crime. States must be adequately equipped to fight these phenomena.

It is nevertheless obvious that the struggle against these new threats requires a high level of international co-operation. This co-operation takes place with greater intensity between States with common interests and practices, but also requires a global framework that must be provided by the United Nations.

In the first place, Europe wants to ensure that the response to terrorism is legitimate in the light of international law, and concerted. We therefore attribute great significance to the execution of pertinent Security Council resolutions, namely resolution 1373, which contains a number of obligations binding on all countries of the international community.

Generally speaking, Europe continues to consider that a multilateral approach is vital. It is the only way to mobilise the international community as a whole and create platforms of consensus around a number of rules and disciplines to combat the major problems of our times.

In the second place, there is an increasing awareness that the nature of these new threats means that European countries must deepen their levels of integration and co-operation within the European Union, both within the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the so-called third pillar, of justice and home affairs.

For the European Union, the current international situation, combined with the issue of illegal immigration, has highlighted some classic concerns in the security field, such as those concerning control of the Union’s external borders and police co-operation between Member States of the Union. The feeling of urgency created by the terrorist threat has contributed to overcoming some of the traditional resistance to greater co-operation in this field.

I would like to draw your attention to some of the measures adopted by the European Union: legislation creating a common arrest warrant; a framework decision on terrorism that requires the adoption of laws against terrorism in each country’s penal code; the adoption by the Council of a common definition of terrorism and a list of terrorist entities, whose financial resources were frozen. The European Commission also proposed the creation of a common border police, which is currently being discussed.

In the third place, it is generally accepted that we must also provide political responses to international terrorism. The September 11 attacks in my opinion had clear political objectives: to sow discord and hatred between the West and Islam. We must not allow this to happen. We must promote dialogue between civilisations and avoid the charge of double standards with regard to the application of international law.

In this area, extra efforts must be made to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. This conflict has many dimensions but there is an essential one, to which we must stick. It is a conflict about land between two national communities, which can only be settled by negotiation. On the one hand, suicide attacks by the Palestinians are unacceptable. On the other, Israel, which is a democracy, a developed country, with a high standard of living, and enjoys great military superiority in the region, must accept that the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal and has to stop. Only then will it be possible to put an end to this conflict.

In the fourth place, Europe is concerned with finding a proper balance between the effectiveness of the fight against international terrorism and the defence of individual rights and guarantees. The fight against terrorism may justify special measures but these must be carefully circumscribed, justified and framed, without ignoring the principle of proportionality.

To end, I would like to come back to the theme of preventive diplomacy, which I touched on very briefly above. We know that some things cannot be prevented. However, we must seek to anticipate problems and act before they assume drastic proportions. We were able to do this in Macedonia, for instance. Preventive diplomacy, however, must not only be directed towards situations of conflict. It must also handle problems of a global nature that are serious per se, but whose potential to cause instability and conflict is still considerable. I refer to issues such as poverty and inequality, environmental degradation and global public health. These issues must remain at the forefront of our concerns.

We must establish new platforms of consensus to promote a process of sustainable and more equitable development. I believe that September 11 contributed to a new awareness of the urgent need to attack these problems, although a lot still remains to be done in this respect.

In these areas, I believe that the European Union is already playing a decisive role as demonstrated, for instance, in its leadership of the process of ratification and entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol.

For its Member States the European Union is an answer to the challenges of globalisation and an example of regional integration that we wish to see emulated in other parts of the world. The Union is playing a larger role on the international stage, both in economic and financial matters and on more political fronts from which it had traditionally been excluded. I think this is an irreversible and beneficial trend. The European Union is increasingly an indispensable interlocutor and partner of the United States and of the rest of the world. That is how it should be. The challenges facing us at the start of the 21st century can only be overcome by concerted action. But this must come about as the result of dialogue, negotiation even, and what I believe is a necessary commitment to take on board other interests and perceptions. That is the meaning behind the multilateral international order that we wish to construct, in solidarity and faithfulness to the spirit of the United Nations.

I am certain that your seminar will provide an excellent opportunity for an in-depth analysis of some of the subjects I have outlined during this talk. I sincerely hope that your discussion will be fruitful and I wish you a pleasant stay in Portugal.