Helsingborg, 30/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - Coordination is an essential element of conflict prevention and the EU "has no intention of acting alone in this field", asserted State Secretary Friis Arne Petersen, speaking on behalf of the Danish Presidency at the "Partners in Prevention" conference, which brought together in Helsingborg representatives of the EU, the Council of Europe, NATO, the United Nations, the African Union and the World Bank. "This is the first time that the European family of regional organisations has come together with the United Nations and our other regional partners specifically to review our work in conflict prevention", commented Javier Solana, CFSP High Representative, who went on to welcome the initiative by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Göteborg Programme on conflict prevention, adopted on a proposal from the Swedish Presidency. In her remarks, Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh stressed the necessity of tackling the root causes of "violent conflict" and, recalling that "the costs of war are immense", she warned: "So are the costs of following peace operations and construction."
"The UN, of course, will continue to play a key role", insisted Friis Arne Petersen, who recognised that "we must improve our efforts to share information". And he continued: "Why not have joint fact-finding missions so we can draw conclusions from the same set of facts? Why not step up cooperation between situation rooms and, for example, regularly exchange officers between organisations? And why not develop together a set of best practices?" Welcoming the fact that the EU has the chance to make use of a relatively wide range of instruments, the representative of the Danish Presidency mentioned in particular the EU police mission, which will take over in January of next year from the UN mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Greek Foreign Minister Georges Papandreou discussed the EU role in the Balkans, saying the prospect of association or of membership of the Union has facilitated long-term crisis prevention. This view was shared by Javier Solana, who said the stability and association process "has given us a very powerful instrument for prevention of conflicts" and that "the perspective of EU membership has changed the balance of interest towards compromise". However, "sometimes the balance of interest for some parties is in favour of conflict", he admitted, going on to ask: "How do we prevent conflict when the interests of one or more parties are served by conflict rather than compromise?". In some cases, "threats, sanctions, and the preventive deployment of military assets may be necessary to stabilize the situation before more conventional incentives are offered", admitted Javier Solana. He also asserted that the adaptation of institutions and decision-making is "central to our ability to function effectively in this new environment", whereas this "may seem marginal to our work in conflict prevention".