Munich, 14/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - In remarks prepared for the opening of the 41st Munich Conference on Security Polity on 12 February, Gerhard Schröder said: “NATO is no longer the primary venue where transatlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies”. Dialogue between the European Union and the United States in its current form does not pay justice to the growing importance of the Union or to the new transatlantic cooperation requirements, according to the Chancellor's text read by the German Foreign Minister in the absence of the leader of the Federal Government who was suffering from a bout of flu.
With these remarks and despite the opposition shown by the leader of the Christian-Democrat opposition, Angela Merkel, for whom NATO is still the place for such dialogue, Germany called for transatlantic cooperation to be rebalanced and for in-depth reform of NATO. Still reading the Chancellor's speech, Peter Struck proposed the creation of a panel of independent experts to find solutions for adapting cooperative structures to the changed conditions and challenges of the international political environment. This would be modelled on the panel set up by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on reforming the United Nations, and would report its findings and proposals to NATO and EU Heads of State and Government by early 2006.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who joined the conference after a lightning visit to Iraq, wished to study the proposals contained in the Chancellor's speech. He also asserted that NATO is “clearly the place to discuss transatlantic relations”, and stressed its “enormous value” as a forum of 26-nations, large and small, sharing common values. He also pointed out that NATO structures are already being reviewed.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer noted that NATO has undergone more transformation in the last three to four years than in the last fifty, conceding that this process is not yet complete. “We're not there yet” but “this Alliance is still very alive and kicking”, he said. Peter Struck recognised that NATO is not yet buried and that the Alliance and the EU are both on the right track.