Cambridge, 08/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - - In a speech entitled "Mars and Venus reconciled: a new era for transatlantic relations" delivered at the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University, Cambridge), CFSP High Representative Javier Solana stressed the distance that lies between the climate of transatlantic relations today and that of the time of John Kennedy, who had proposed "a declaration of interdependence" between the "new union emerging in Europe and the old American union". Today, Robert Kagan's analyses have led to "exaggerations and simplifications" whereby "Europeans and Americans (…) inhabit (…)separate planets". He continued saying: "I am from Venus (…), faint-hearted, soft-headed and militarily and politically weak. You are from Mars … a land of moral clarity and resolute action. In the real cosmos there is a planet that lies between the two. It is the Earth, a planet that we will have to share for the foreseeable future". The Iraq crisis is not the "first time in recent history that transatlantic views have differed on the wisdom of using force", the former Spanish Foreign Ministers said, citing an example that goes back several weeks now, that of the ship carrying missiles from North Korea to Yemen and which had been boarded "in the middle of the Indian Ocean" by helicopters - "a rather daring military operation" which had been interrupted because the "lawyers in another country got together and decided that action was illegal and had to be called off". Who had conducted the operation? Mr Solana asked, saying "Europeans, Spaniards as it happens". Who had insisted on the operation being ended because of international legal norms - the United States Government.
Mr Solana recognises the "sense of crisis" that is today a feature of transatlantic relations, and explains this feeling by the fact that "we are at a turning point". The war in Iraq is "something new" and "may be the first war of a new era". It is a "dramatic display of America's dominance at a time of an unprecedented sense of America's vulnerability". Europeans are keen to put an end to such division and "we must work together to re-establish civilised dialogue and common approaches", Mr Solana affirms, urging transatlantic partners to "address some profound questions" that affect "world order". The problems are common problems, he insists, noting that "Europe will come within range of potentially hostile missiles from many countries of concern long before the US does (…) We are also subject to terrorism and have been for many years. (…) Failed and failing states present real problems, as we saw in Somalia and in Afghanistan". With regards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr Solana recalled that, two years ago, he was a member of the Mitchell Committee. He deplored the fact that "the ideas put forward then were right. We knew where we had to go, but the fact is that we did not get anywhere (…). Meanwhile, more than 2000 people have died. (…) I therefore welcome what President Bush has had to say about the roadmap. Now is the time to implement it, to 'get on the road', that is".
In order to re-establish a sense of common purpose in transatlantic relations, Mr Solana suggests "four key principles" to: - reaffirm that "we are partners and allies". "Treat your friends like allies and they will behave like allies", the former NATO Secretary General insisted, warning: "The alternative is to pick your partners, as you would select tools from a toolbox. (…) Most of us would prefer to be called an 'ally' or a 'partner' than a 'tool' in a box"; - have "effective capabilities" to which all members contribute. Mr Solana recognised that some American criticism of Europe for not doing enough on defence is justified, but recalls that "real progress is being made" and notes that "security today is a multi-dimensional concept". Thus one can ask how much additional security an aircraft carrier brings, and whether it is more or less than spending the equivalent amount of money on peacekeeping or the reconstruction of failed states; - use these capabilities to "address causes as well as symptoms" of problems (such as "the political environment from which terrorism grows"). Citing President Bush ("we must confront the worst threats before they emerge"), Mr Solana specifies: "in our view, this certainly applies to issues such as climate change, sustainable development and regional conflagration"; - act together in order to strengthen "a world based on rules". "Law and power are two sides of the same coin", Mr Solana notes on the subject of the different "methods" practised on either side of the Atlantic. Stressing that "force needs to be backed by legitimacy", he adds: "a rules-based approach is not a ploy to constrain the US", but a way for America to remain a "benign world power". He warns that the alternatives are hardly "attractive": - "US isolation", "dominance through for force" (he asks: "Do we want a wholesale return to the politics of the caveman, where the guy with the biggest stick carries the argument - until he turns the next corner?"). Admitting that the European Union is not always "an easy body to deal with", Mr Solana calls on the Americans not to seek to divide Europe in order to rule. He concludes: "We do not have the luxury of living on separate planets (…). I seem to recall that it was only in the arms of Venus that Mars found peace. and was their beautiful daughter not the goddess Harmonia?"