ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC MARTTI AHTISAARI
TO THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NATIONAL DEFENCE COURSES ASSOCIATION
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI ON 13.4.1999

EXAMINING THE SECURITY SITUATION

Recent weeks have shown that human suffering and distress are an aspect of the international community's everyday reality also in Europe. The Kosovo crisis teaches us all that peace requires lasting structures: democracy, cooperation and trust. In their absence in extreme cases, force has to be responded to with force in order to guarantee security and protect the innocent.

As I reminded my audience in my speech to Parliament two weeks ago, there are still gaps in the European security order. Nevertheless, this must not blind our eyes. When the threat of a major war had receded ten years ago, we were not able to prepare for crises. We know today that the greatest challenges facing European security have been and will continue to be associated specifically with problems within states. However, a crisis of this kind is invariably unpredictable in many ways and managing it peaceably is not easy.

The old answers are not necessarily applicable to the contradictions that are inherent in the development in Europe. It is essential that no country isolates itself nor becomes isolated. What is now called for is both the development of new means and adaptation of existing institutions to the changes that are taking place.

Broad cooperation transcending the dividing lines of the Cold War is increasingly important in dealing with military threats. The economic dimension has risen to prominence alongside traditional military and geopolitical factors in efforts to strengthen security.

Over the long term it is above all integration that will strengthen the foundation of security. As a member of the European Union, we are both creating economic prosperity and building a new and more secure tomorrow for our continent. As the EU strengthens, our own position will likewise grow stronger. The entire Baltic Sea region, especially the three Baltic States, will benefit from strengthening and enlargement of the EU. The pre-accession process has already brought these countries within the sphere of EU stability.

Finland has an important role in building Europe's new security order.

On the basis of a broad conception of security, Finnish foreign policy strives to strengthen human security — a security with the aim of ensuring sustainable development, respect for human rights and preventing violent crises.

A hundred years ago in 1899 Finland was struggling under the Empire's efforts to Russify our country. This summer we shall assume the demanding tasks of the European Union Presidency. Finland's position has totally changed in the past century — to our advantage.

I shall now go on to examine the security situation and our country's position in the light of four factors. They are:

- European integration;

- Euro-Atlantic security cooperation;

- The development in Russia; and

- Change in Finland's position.

European integration and disintegration are processes that have been alternating with each other for centuries. Major wars have shaped borders and determined the position of states. A new phase began after the Second World War. Old enmities were eliminated through integration. But the road of integration has always been a rocky one. At the same time as Germany was reuniting, Czechoslovakia was splitting up and the former Yugoslavia was disintegrating into war. As Jacques Delors reminded us in 1995: "Building Europe is never comparable to a long, tranquilly-flowing river. Stops and crises are part and parcel of development."

Crises are part of the EU's life, but they have not brought development to a halt. We were reminded of that once again when the EU Commission recently tendered its resignation. The Union quickly succeeded in getting on top of this crisis at the Berlin summit.

European integration is increasingly essential also in view of globalisation of the economy. The birth of the Euro creates the preconditions for strengthening the Union economically.

The political importance of the European Union is growing as a consequence of its increasing economic strength, but also because it is enlarging and acquiring new responsibility. The Finnish Presidency will coincide with an important phase in the Union's development.

The Treaty of Amsterdam will soon enter into force. It will provide new means and opportunities to strengthen the Union's capacity to act in the sector of foreign and security policy. There are three dimensions in this:

- Institutional means,

- The Union's common strategies, and

- Developing a capacity for crisis management.

All of these instruments are being developed gradually. Europe and the European Union must assume more and more responsibility for the security of our own continent.

The EU will choose a high foreign-policy representative at the summit in Cologne next June. The task of this person will be to assist the country holding the Presidency and the European Council in drafting and implementing the Union's common foreign and security policy.

It is essential to develop a common political perception for the EU. Towards this end, the Union will have to create policies on those sectors that are most central from the perspective of its goals and security. The Union is striving to project stability in its own continent and to increase cooperation with various regions and states world-wide. Also in this context, I emphasise the importance of the Union's relations with the great European states in its environs, such as Turkey, Russia and Ukraine. As the Union harmonises its legislation and strengthens its internal security, there is a danger of a normative and standard-of-living gap growing between it and those states.

The wars of disintegration in the former Yugoslavia showed that a lack of a European capacity for crisis management slowed progress towards resolutions.

A serious debate on how the Union's crisis-management capacity could be strengthened has begun during the German Presidency. This discourse will continue while Finland is at the helm. In this conjunction, the status of the Western European Union will also be defined. A common defence for the European Union is not included in the plans, because regional defence of the Union countries has been provided for through either NATO or independent arrangements.

In a week's time, a NATO summit will be taking place in Washington to mark the alliance's half-century history. From the perspective of European stability, NATO has had an important role. The alliance provided the security in which economic and political integration could get under way.

It has been said of NATO that it succeeded so well in its task that it rendered itself superfluous once the old enemy images had disappeared. The solution that emerged was to develop and orient NATO towards dealing with new security risks. That made it natural also for Finland to create a new kind of relationship to the alliance.

The Partnership for Peace concept and the institutional forms that go with it were created within NATO. Finland will be attending the session of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council taking place in conjunction with the NATO summit in Washington in a week from now. We are determinedly developing a peace partnership that will strengthen transatlantic fellowship also in crisis management. A strategic policy on expanding the Partnership for Peace will be adopted in Washington. That will give Finland an opportunity to participate in the planning and implementation of NATO crisis-management operations. Partnership also includes harmonising the military systems of NATO and partner countries. Finland meets most of the goals that NATO has set with regard to interoperability.

* * *

The restructuring of NATO also includes enlargement. It is an organisation that is open to all European democracies. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined a month ago. Most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Baltic States have applied for membership. As countries that do not participate in military alliances, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Ireland and Switzerland have not sought membership.

From the perspective of the former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic States, NATO membership is associated with a historical need to solve the problem of security. The view that every country could make its own choice with respect to security policy was accepted everywhere after the Cold War. This is founded on the principles of the CSCE.

The summit meeting between the United States and Russia in Helsinki in 1997 laid the groundwork for closer cooperation between NATO and Russia. As a consequence of the Kosovo crisis, Russia has frozen its military cooperation with NATO. I hope this will be only a passing phase. The Euro-Atlantic community offers Russia a good and developing cooperation dimension.

The development of European security presupposes strengthening cooperation between all institutions responsible for security. Developing the OSCE and strengthening the instruments at its disposal is one aspect of this.

The protracted crisis in the former Yugoslavia and now especially the activities in Kosovo of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have presented the UN system with a difficult task. What attitude should the international community adopt to a situation in which a government and its armed forces are engaged in systematic repression and violence against inhabitants of its own country on a scale that attains the dimensions of genocide? The avenue of negotiations and peaceful means were used to exhaustion. In the UN Security Council it was not possible to agree on effective intervention to stop the violence. A principle that has been accepted within both the UN and the OSCE system is that violations of human rights are no longer an internal affair of states. Thus the use of military force against Yugoslavia was an unavoidable step to end large-scale violations of human rights and ethnic cleansing.

This was not an easy solution. Responsibility for the use of force lies with the Yugoslavian leadership.

When one ponders, in retrospect, the principle involved in the matter, it is not without significance that when it was deliberated in the Security Council a clear majority did not consider NATO's action to be contrary to the UN Charter.

Crises should always be resolved by peaceful means. This is a guiding obligation in the UN Charter, which states that the use of force is justified only in self-defence or under a resolution of the Security Council. Non-intervention in internal affairs is likewise a central rule enshrined in the Charter. Nonetheless, the Council has on several occasions over the years authorised the use of force in situations that have been limited to within the borders of states. What has been involved is a danger of internal problems being projected outwards in a way that jeopardises international peace and security. These are typically ethnic or similar internecine disputes which have become inflamed to the point of violence. It has been calculated that in the past 30 years more than a hundred states have become embroiled in civil war as a result of disintegration or collapse.

The UN Charter and the UN system remain the foundation of international security. It is natural that small states, in particular, must be able to have confidence in the UN system of collective security.

The post-Cold War UN system is seeking lines of action that suit the new conditions. It must be able to respond to new challenges, of which events in the Western Balkans are a grave reminder. As Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted in a speech to the Commission on Human Rights on 7 April: "No Government has the right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the human rights or fundamental freedoms of its peoples." If the UN system and its operating principles are an impediment to the international community taking effective action to prevent widespread and grave violations of human rights, and even genocide, there is a need to pause to evaluate these principles and their application. Ways of countering crises of this kind ought to be found.

I have wanted to encourage a discourse on this issue, as for example when I took it up in my speech at the International Court of Justice in the Hague last January. The feedback that I have received has been mainly positive, but the discourse has hardly begun.

A refugee situation of enormous proportions has been created in Kosovo and its neighbouring countries. After initial difficulties the international community has tackled it rapidly and on a broad front. The Finnish Government has decided to allocate substantial aid sums. The Finns have understood the depth of the crisis. The Finnish Red Cross and other NGOs are doing excellent work.

Broad international cooperation is an essential requirement for a peaceful settlement of the Kosovo crisis. Russia's constructive involvement in peace efforts is important. When peace has been brought to Kosovo and the preconditions for the return of refugees to their home districts have been met, it will be time for the international community, together with the countries of the region, to make a comprehensive plan for the long-term development of South-East Europe. The European Union has the main responsibility in this. The work has begun under German leadership and Finland will have a key task as the next holder of the Presidency. The Balkans must be brought back into Europe.

The goal is a common European security order based on democracy and economic progress and in which the risk of military clashes has been effectively eliminated.

* * *

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people asked whether also Russia would disintegrate. That has not happened, but Russia is in crisis and many of its regions are in deep distress. One of the challenges of development in Russia is that of halting the crumbling of the country. The regions are weak, but so also is the central power. Strengthening the central power does not conflict with developing Russia's federal character. It is in the regions that the country's immaterial and material resources are to be found. Recent years have shown that the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament composed of leaders of the regions and republics, has had a moderating influence on the country's stormy internal politics.

The election campaign that is already in progress, and in which the Duma elections in December and the presidential election in June 2000 are influencing each other, will put Russia's young democracy to the test. Extreme nationalist sentiments are being heard with increasing frequency. The economic and social crisis in Russia is deep. The health of the population has been constantly deteriorating and crime is a difficult problem.

Russia is lagging alarmingly behind the dynamic development of an enlarging European Union. However, when it comes to leading Russia into the global mainstream of development, there is no alternative to evolving into a state under the rule of law and remaining on the straight-and-narrow path of democracy.

The condition of Russia's nuclear weaponry is a serious question. A weakening of the economic foundation of the armed forces is creating danger situations, and international cooperation is needed to counter them. A reduction in the number of nuclear weapons is in progress, and the START-2 treaty towards this end is awaiting ratification by the Duma. Whether nuclear arsenals will be reduced in a managed manner will be one of the major security questions over the next few years. The same applies to tactical nuclear weapons, of which there are many. Compliance with a US-Russian agreement to reduce them can not be verified. In a worst-case scenario, these weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

The European Union has been working actively to replace or refurbish nuclear power reactors on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

The Russian leadership understands that the country's many problems can be solved only through broad international cooperation. It must be promoted, the range of instruments at its service developed. There is no other way. The EU's Northern Dimension programme as well as the development of cooperation between the EU, Russia and the United States are elements in the work of building this road.

The European Union is creating a Russia strategy, which we can expect to inject new drive and consistency into the development of relations between it and Russia. Russia is very dependent on the EU market and the EU needs Russia's energy resources. The benefits are mutual and the degree of interdependence is considerable. Russia is an important partner for the enlarging Union. A lasting improvement in the situation can be set in motion only by Russia, on its own resources. That does not prevent all of us in whose interests it lies to restore Russia to health from taking a hand in helping.

Restoring Russia to health is a key question of European security.

* * *

We have been making a determined drive to restructure our Defence Forces. An ability to participate in international crisis management is part of their expanded job description. We have also implemented some painful arrangements, as a consequence of which the motivation of personnel within the defence administration has been put to the test. In this conjunction I express my thanks to all members of our defence administration who have shouldered responsibility in these often-difficult arrangements.

National defence courses have become an important part of our work to defend our country. Nearly six thousand Finns have taken part in national courses, which help create links between the defence administration and the rest of society. This contact is increasingly important.

Finland's security environment has radically changed. It has been possible to adapt our foreign policy to this change without either dramatics or additional costs.

As we know, Finland's geopolitical position has not historically been an easy one. The ending of the Cold War and European integration have solved many historical problems from our point of view. How we avail ourselves of the opportunities that are opening up depends on us.