Remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini at the joint press conference with Lazar Comanescu, Foreign Affairs Minister of Romania
Bucharest, 7 October 2016
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Thank you very much Lazar [Comanescu]. It is really a pleasure for me to be here in my capacity for the first time. I do not only visit places outside of the European Union, far away or in our region, I also visit the capitals of our Member States to shape together our common priorities for Foreign and Security Policy. And these are times which require from us a special dose of unity and determination in acting together in our region and in the world.
We had today the opportunity to discuss with my good friend, with Lazar, but also with the Defence Minister, with the President - and I will continue my programme with meetings with the Prime Minister, the relevant committees in the Parliament - to discuss the Romanian views on the current European Union's policies. It is very important for me personally and for the European Institutions that each and every Member State has a full ownership of our common European policies because, as I had the chance to highlight earlier today at the public event, the European Union is all of us together. There is no distance between the capitals of the Member States and the place where we, all together, take forward our common policies and our common decisions.
So it is very important that we take time to discuss, to listen to each other, to reflect and to shape common actions and common visions. We discussed in particular the current challenges, the implementation of the Global Strategy in many different fields, including the one of security and defence. We discussed a lot about the current challenges we are facing in our region; and our region includes both our neighbourhood in the East and in the South. We discussed our policies towards the crisis in Syria and also, as the Minister mentioned, a special role that Romania plays in shaping the European Union's policies when it comes to the Eastern partnership, a dimension of our foreign policy that is particularly close to our hearts, and that requires a lot of common work.
I am very much keen in continuing to work very closely with Romania to accompany all our Eastern partners in their paths towards a better, deepened relation with the European Union. I have recently met almost all interlocutors from our Eastern partners in New York at the margins of the UN General Assembly. We obviously also discussed Moldova, but also Ukraine and other countries that are of extreme interest and importance for us all. Not only for Romania and for the countries of the European Union that are looking or are located more to the East, but also for all of us.
Let me also say that Romania has a special role to play - and it plays it - when it comes to the Black Sea region. The understanding and the common contribution that Romania gives to the European Union's policy in this region that is strategic for all of us is extremely valuable. And, to cut it short because I want also to leave some space for questions, let me thank you very much, Lazar, and through you all the Romanian institutions for an excellent cooperation we have in the field of common foreign and security policies, knowing very well that your contribution to shaping a common approach is going to continue, to be strong and solid in the interest of all your citizens which is also in the interest of all the European Union's citizens.
If I can use one minute on something that is out of the context of our visit. We received just while we were starting our meeting the excellent news of the Nobel Peace Prize given to President Santos of Colombia. Let me say how happy I am personally - and the European Union is - for this prize that recognises the determination, the vision of a great man of peace and the hope that this will be followed by good steps to pursue peace in Colombia. It seems very far away geographically, but the European Union has played an important role and continues to play an important role, so I felt a deep emotion about this prize and I wanted to share this publicly because indeed we discussed bilateral issues, we discussed European Union's issues, we discussed our region but we are part of a bigger world in which the European Union plays a global role and so I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you the, I will say the pride, of I think all Europeans, in seeing that a peace process like that one receives such an important recognition and encouragement. The European Union will continue to play its role to support that process; and today we have one reason to celebrate. Thank you.
Q&A
Q. On defence and how the plans fit in with the work of NATO.
A. There is the need for the European Union to use all the potential we have on defence cooperation. It is a need that our citizens feel - to increase their level of security. It is a need that our partners around the world, including in Washington, feel because strengthening the European defence is also the way of strengthening security and peace building in the world and we have some tools that we can use and we have not used so far. So we are going to proceed in the next couple of months, from now to November, when we will have the Council of Foreign and a meeting of Defence Ministers and then in December the European Council with the Head of States and Governments, presenting a concrete plan for the European defence with some concrete actions.
This is not going to be neither in contradiction, neither in competition with NATO, on the contrary. The first person to whom I gave physically the Global Strategy when I presented it in June was Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO. And we have had since the end of June several meetings, Jens and myself. We work together to make sure that this would run in parallel to strengthening EU-NATO cooperation. A strong European defence is also a way of strengthening NATO and our work will go exactly in this direction. This is also what we hear from him, that NATO needs a stronger defence cooperation, and this is also what we hear from the United States. John Kerry was in Brussels just a few days ago saying exactly the same. So we have an opportunity, I think, to use these instruments we have, especially in the field of military capability development, the industrial basis of our defence. I give you one number and then I stop: the European Union's countries spend on defence 50% of what the Americans spend, but our output is 15%. We have to fill in that gap and the way of doing this is using our economy of scales. Not one single European country alone has the size of doing what the Americans are doing, but all together as a continent we do have the size and the economy of scale of investing better. And by the way, this is going to have good effects on our national budgets that have all some restraints and also on job creation and growth, economic growth, because investing in the industrial component of our European defence will allow research, technology and job creation maybe in Europe to increase. So I see a window there for concrete actions, nothing ideological, let me say it very clearly, we are not talking about a European army, but we are talking about very concrete steps that will be beneficial for the European security, for the European economy and also for strengthening NATO and the transatlantic alliance. Thank you.
Q. On the pace of the reforms in Moldova.
A. Just to say that I met, just a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Moldova in the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York. We discussed exactly about the state of play of the reforms adoption. There are some steps that have been taken and that we recognise. It is very important that the implementation of the steps taken moves forward swiftly and I expect that to happen, including in the field of anti-corruption, investigations, transparency. It is very important not for the sake of the relations between Moldova and the European Union - it is very important for the sake of the relations between the Moldovan authorities and the Moldovan citizens. And this is why I always tend to avoid the reference to pro-European camps, because to me that is true for Moldova that is true for any country inside the European union: being pro-European and pro their own citizens, pro-Moldovans in this case, pro-Romanians here, or pro-Italians in Italy, is exactly the same because the agenda that we try to encourage, the agenda based on reforms is an agenda that responds not to abstract criteria but to what would be good for the country itself and the citizens of the country itself. To answer directly to your question, some steps have been taken, and now the implementation needs to follow up. Thank you.
Q. On the use of the EU military capabilities.
A. The European Union already has seventeen EU operations and missions around the world. Some of them are military ones like the one we have in the Mediterranean, Sophia, that is dismantling the trafficking and smuggling networks of people across the Mediterranean. It is also saving lives - it is a military EU operation in the Mediterranean. Or others like the anti-piracy Operation Atalanta of the Horn of Africa, and others mainly in Africa but not only, already working under the EU flag - military operations but also civilian ones doing mainly training and assistance.
We already have some instruments that are operational on the ground, working well. We are not only a soft power, we are already a hard power. The point is how you use your hard power and this will always be, as I said, in the search for peace, promotion of human rights, good governance. This is the European way. In this respect, let me stress very clearly: what we are working on is not at all a shift in terms of a militarisation of the European Union, not at all. It is simply a matter of using better the instruments we have, using the potential we have, not only with the single fragmented national approaches, I made the example of capabilities in the field of defence – for instance there is an added value in working more and more together so that we have the economy of scale of investing better our resources. This is the way in which this will affect our policy. It is not going to change the course of our policies but it is going to give us more elements, more tools to fulfil our objectives and our goals, that again, I would like to stress, are going to remain focused on the promotion of peace, of stability, of security because the key elements of our global strategy that we will all serve in the next years is that the stability, the peace, the security, the development of our neighbours but also of our partners far away in the world are of key direct interest for our citizens. I think all our citizens realised it very well. There is no place in the world that is far way. Everything that happens, be it in Africa, in Asia, Latin America, in the Mediterranean, in the East of Europe, is affecting our security directly, so it is an investment, it is an investment that we can have with the tools that we can put together. Thank you.
Link to the video: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/player.cfm?ref=I127353