European Institute Annual Meeting of the Members and Board of Advisors

I apologize for putting on a tight schedule and rushing people to their chairs. Unfortunately, there is another dinner in town this evening with a European foreign minister that I want to get to from here, so I don't want to feel bad in both places, both being rushed here and then arriving late for the dinner with the foreign minister. Anyway, thank you for inviting me to speak with you this evening.

I thought I would outline a few thoughts looking at the fall semester. We tend to divide our year into the school year, so we've got a fall semester coming up, we've got a spring semester, we're coming back from the summer holidays. What do we see looking ahead and where are we going? What are some of the high points that are out there? I thought I would cover a few things. One of them, a very recent poll that came out from the German Marshall Fund. I want to call your attention to that, and I will make a few comments about that. But I think that leads us very much into the policy context of U.S.-European, U.S.- EU relations over the past few years. And then finally we have some very immediate challenges and opportunities that I want to talk to you about and a few closing thoughts as to where we go looking out over the next few years.

Concerning the Transatlantic Trends report, the polling which has recently come out from the German Marshall Fund, I took away these few observations that maybe will challenge some of your opinions, maybe not. But I see in this poll a reason for some optimism, some positive reinforcement of some trends that have been going on for a few years. The first thing that I would highlight in this survey is that the perceptions of threats that Europeans identify as affecting them personally are more and more like the perceptions of threats that Americans identify as potentially affecting them personally. So you see this convergence of attitudes among European and American publics about their apprehensions, about their anxieties. This includes international terrorism, it includes violent Islamic extremism, it includes climate change, it includes Iran with nuclear weapons. The numbers on both sides of the Atlantic are closer together than at any point in the last several years and have been on a trend of moving together. So this convergence of perceptions of our public, I think, is an important point to bring out and one that is a source of optimism for the future.

Another source of optimism is that people say they are optimistic. Here is one where I would challenge the way this was recorded in the media because I read the data differently. What the German Marshall Fund survey said is that there's about 30 some percent of Europeans who believe that transatlantic relations will improve beyond 2008. There is about 15 percent or so who think they will deteriorate beyond 2008, so twice as many are thinking it's going to get better rather than thinking that it will get worse, and a large middle -45 percent - who say that things are going to be about the same.

You could take this large middle and you could take that small number saying they are going to get worse and say - oh, more than half think it's going to be bad or getting worse. But I look at it the other way, and I say "well, wait a second, most people don't have an opinion." Most people are saying that it will be about the same. A larger number by a factor of two or three think it's going to be getting better. I think that's a significant indication of where the people's thinking lies.

The third thing that I took away from this also is a source of optimism is the will that is expressed on both sides of the Atlantic to see transatlantic partnership and cooperation. When asked whether Europe should be developing an independent policy and acting independently or playing a role in world affairs, a leadership role, but in partnership with the United States, a majority, more than 50 percent, say that it should be in partnership.

There are two countries in the 12 countries in Europe who expressed a preference for independence, one of them I think quite naturally is France, which has always opted for a streak of independence, and that is natural. But when you look at the numbers overall, there is a preponderance of thinking in Europe that we need to be working in partnership with the U.S. So I take all of these pieces of data out of that survey and say "you know, this is a good foundation for transatlantic relations." It rests to us now to build on this foundation. We can't squander it; we have to continue building it up, but it's there.

The second thing that I wanted to raise, building on the trends in the survey, is the policy context in which we are looking at this as an Administration. When you look to the beginning of second term in the Bush Administration, there was a conscious decision and conscious effort on the part of the Administration to reach out to Europe. This was based on a recognition that we form a single democratic transatlantic community, that we face challenges in common -- the same threats and same challenges affect us all - and if we are going to deal with these effectively, we've got to be doing this together.

And so this was a theme of President Bush's early second-term press conferences in 2004 and early 2005. It was a theme of Secretary Rice's confirmation hearings when she was confirmed by the Senate to become Secretary of State. Secretary Rice's first trip as Secretary of State was to Europe to build on this desire to strengthen transatlantic partnership. President Bush's first trip as a second term president was also to Europe, including to Brussels to meet with the EU in the EU institutional headquarters in Brussels, the first president to do so.

And then over the space of two and a half years, we very methodically have gone through issue by issue and tried to build an actual standing consensus with Europe of what it is we are trying to do in the world together, and also find the institutional mechanisms for how to do that. So if you look at Kosovo, you find the Contact Group. If you look at Israel and Palestine, you find the Quartet. If you look at Lebanon, we've worked with the UN Security Council, and we have UNIFIL, which we are very strong supporters of, and so on and so on. We have built up common approaches to all of these policies. There will always be nuances; there will always be gradations where we're pushing or pulling, but we are back in the mode where we are talking with each other seriously about policies and trying to find the common policy perspectives in which to take action together. That is the context in which we are looking at this.

And when you see that commitment from the Administration and a reciprocal effort on the part of European governments, it starts to tell you something. We have felt for a year or two that our effort to work more closely with Europeans on these global challenges has been reciprocated by European governments. We've also felt increasingly that as we engage in a discussion among elites -- whether it's conferences or media, journalists, editorial writers, pundits -- that we're in a serious dialogue, not like the friction and separation that we would have experienced in 2003 and 2004, but a genuine dialogue.

What we never saw was change in public opinion - very strong negative attitudes in European public opinion about the U.S and its policy. And I think from the German Marshall Fund survey that I described, as well as the Bertelsmann Foundation survey that was done in May, we are beginning to see a little bit of movement of public attitudes that I think is a fundamentally optimistic one that we should try to build on.

That brings me to a third point, because some people will then immediately argue yes, but nothing will really change as long as we have the current U.S. administration, and it's getting through that period where only after we have a new election and a new U.S. administration that things will really change. I'd like to challenge this assumption a little bit from a couple of perspectives.

First off, I think that there is some evidence already that there is better cooperation already on both sides of the Atlantic and a little bit of loosening on the public attitudes. Another is that there have been changes in leadership within Europe and this is significant, because this creates new discussions, new dialogues, new opportunities with new leaders in Europe, and publics do react to their own leaders. They see what their own leaders are saying and doing, and I think it can affect the way that the public views things. An example of this, which I believe is demonstrated in the German Marshall Fund survey, is the enormous movement in German public opinion when it comes to perceptions from two years ago to where they are today, following a change in leadership in Germany during that time. So I think that's another reason that we should be open to the prospect of more could be done now.

And then finally, I think that we have to recognize that whether or not we're in the last year of the U.S. Administration, there are some extremely important foreign policy issues that we need to be working on together, and there are some rare opportunities on these foreign policy issues that we need to take advantage of now. I'd like to take a minute just to touch on a couple of these as illustrations, not the whole world, to show that I think this is not a period of lame duckism, but rather a period of opportunity.

The first one of these that I will mention is Kosovo, where there are negotiations underway between the Kosovar Albanians, and the Serbs, looking to reach a settlement. We have brought this to the UN Security Council. We have set a timeline, this is a French proposal under President Sarkozy to set a timeline for the negotiations. We have reason to be optimistic that this will result, in the end, in a final status for Kosovo that will enable the region to move forward, it will enable Serbia to move forward, and will enable Kosovo to move forward.

And when you look at that, not in isolation as a Kosovo status settlement, but you look at it as part of the prospect of NATO enlargement for Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, who are the three candidate countries right now; If you look at membership in the partnership for peace for Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia, which was decided at the Riga Summit by NATO; If you look at the EU's engagement and relationship with each of these countries (and I believe that there is a fundamentally positive attitude from the European Union towards eventual membership of the Balkan states in the EU) it's a question of timing. It's a question of performance, but not a question of principle, in the same way that it is for some others). If you look at all these things, I think this is an opportunity to see the Balkan region finally come out of the ‘90s and the period of ethnic conflict and be part of the 21^st century where the states and institutions are based on a democratic system, market economy, rule of law, ability, human rights, integration into Western institutions, European institutions.

Another opportunity I think is on climate change. Climate change is an issue where we have been bitterly divided between the U.S. and Europe over several years. And I think in the last year or so, we have seen a new opportunity. What we've seen from the U.S. side is President Bush's initiative taken before the G8 Summit to really be part of a post-2012 framework on climate change and to work towards a global goal for reduction of greenhouse gasses. We've also seen recognition from both Europe and the United States that our efforts will only be successful globally if we work with countries globally. So bringing in developing countries - China, India, Brazil, Russia - as part of the dialogue is seen to be important on both sides. I think we've cut across some of the stale discussion, Kyoto or not Kyoto, and looked in fact at what are the programs and policies that we can put in place to make a difference in greenhouse gas emissions. I think that we've found that both the U.S. and Europe are doing this and doing it with roughly similar results.

We can argue better here, you can argue better there, but we're both trying. And I think getting back to the point where we realize that our objectives are basically the same, and we have got to reach out more effectively with the developing world to make this effective on a global basis is a good starting point. And so it creates an opportunity, and I think the Meeting of Major Economies that President Bush has called for here on September 27^th and 28^th is a good starting point and hopefully will launch a process where we do reach agreement by the end of 2008 on the post-Kyoto framework with a global goal that we all share, including countries in the developing world.

The third opportunity that I want to mention, and then I will stop on that, is on Afghanistan, where we have worked together very well so far as a transatlantic community. We have the EU contributing additional police, the training of Afghan police. We have substantial reconstruction and development assistance from the EU and from European countries, as well as a very large commitment from the U.S., about $14 billion thus far. We have all members of NATO contributing in the ISAF security operation.

We avoided a major Taliban offensive this spring. It's easy to get distracted by the negative reports that we hear every day, this incident where there were significant civilian casualties, this incident where there were friendly fire casualties, this incident where the Taliban set off an improvised explosive device or attacked a marketplace and a lot of civilians or children were wounded and killed. And these are tragic incidents, but I think it's also important to look at the perspective going back to 2001 and 2002 and see what we have achieved. Back then, you remember the Taliban was an abusive regime and imposing a very harsh version of Islam on the population that did not welcome it. Women were denied fundamental rights; for some crimes they were stoned to death. Girls were not allowed to go to school. UN cultural monuments were being defaced and blown up. It was a very dark time.

And while there's a very long way to go in Afghanistan and a lot of challenges today, we should look back and say - well, the economy is three times the size that it used to be, there is a constitution, there is an elected government. There is governance that touches throughout the country. Kids are back in schools, 6 million kids, 2 million of those are girls. There is a commitment in the international community to support the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan. This is a lot to build on.

I think we did well at the beginning of this year to get ahead of the Taliban so that there wasn't a military offensive and instead, we had a diplomatic and a financial and reconstruction and development defensive. I think that we should look ahead again to the fall to think, "how do we strengthen the Afghan government, support its institutions, and build on the security and the reconstruction that we have?"

Those are three examples of opportunities that I see looking ahead and that we can do real things this fall. I could go through a longer list, but I will pause there. But what I want to leave you with is a sense, from my perspective, sitting where I sit in the Administration and having worked on these issues consistently for the last six years in Washington, I see this as rather than a period of lame duckism and drift, one of the most exciting periods ahead with some of the greatest opportunities ahead that we've had in this period of time. So thank you very much for having me. I would be delighted to answer a question or two and then offer a comment, but then I do need to run to another event. Thank you.

Questions and Answers

Robert Hunter: Thank you very much for your leadership tonight. If you had your druthers, what would you ask the European Union and Europe to be doing more of on its end?

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Volker:  First, since it's a loaded question, I have to disarm the question first. Which is to say that Europe is doing a lot already, and we shouldn't forget that. That there are more European troops in Afghanistan now than there are American troops, that there is a substantial commitment of restructure and development and resources. There is an EU envoy, there are police training resources committed by the European Union.

So we shouldn't be sneezing at European contributions, but we should also recognize that the contributions that Europe and the major contributions that the U.S. are making are still not sufficient to the challenges that we have. And therefore, if we are looking ahead, what more do we need? I will give a few examples. One of them is the area of police training. Despite the 600 or so American police trainers, 150 or 160 or so planned European trainers, the need is far greater - I have seen a figure of about 2500. So the idea of additional police training in Afghanistan is critical.

People tell me that the training in the Afghan National Army is going reasonably well. There is more that needs to be done there in terms of embedding military liaison teams into the Afghan National Army. These are teams of about 20 or so people, so even though a country may be small, its military can make this kind of contribution, and there is a much greater need than is being filled. But that said, the training of the military is seen to have gone fairly well in Afghanistan and needs to continue. Training of police is further behind and an area that we have to put a priority on. That's two examples.

Another example is that we often feel that the international efforts in Afghanistan are not as well coordinated as they could be. I seem to remember in February, you and I talked about this on the airplane. It would be very welcome to see a senior international coordinator for Afghanistan who could help us as an international community identify the needs on the ground, help our governments come to grips with what we need to do, do a little cajoling, do a little deconfliction. And also be a helpful voice in supporting President Karzai and the Afghanistan government. So that is another area where we could identify a need.

Another area is counternarcotics. It is no secret that the poppy crop in Afghanistan is the largest it has ever been. It is particularly centered in three provinces in Afghanistan, something like 80 percent of poppy comes out of these three provinces. So we shouldn't look at Afghanistan as a failure as a whole because of the poppy problem, but we do have to recognize that we have a serious problem with poppy that threatens some of the provinces if we don't make more progress in dealing with it. So that's another area where I hope we can have better international coordination on that. And those are three examples.

I will mention one on the military side, as well, in addition to the military training teams, which are helicopters and maneuver forces, because the Taliban has gone from trying to mount more conventional military operations, realizing it can't do that, to operating more as a terrorist or a guerilla force with improvised explosive devices, terrorist attacks, hostage taking, and putting civilians at risk. We need to cope with that kind of military challenge. We're there in a protective mode. We have got to try to support and protect the institutions of a growing Afghanistan. To do that, we need to have the forces that can respond quickly from place to place wherever they may be needed. So helicopters and maneuver forces are necessary for that.

And related to this, there are a lot of forces in Afghanistan already, some of which have restrictions on their ability to move throughout the country, and they operate in this kind of inflexible way. And to the degree that countries can maximize the flexible use of their forces in Afghanistan so that they do the best job for the Afghan people and the commanders on the ground, that would be very important. Take the other side of the room?

Ambassador Mallias of Greece:  I want to say that on Afghanistan, fine, transatlantic relations, fine, Kosovo - we need also Russia and how you think to move ahead with Russia as Europeans and the United States.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Volker:  Well, we have worked together, as I was saying about some other issues, we have worked together to develop a process from which we hope to get from here to there. We've gone to the Security Council and had informal discussions; we had resolutions circulated in the Security Council. As you know, Russia was not prepared to move on those. It was a proposal of the French President at the G8 Summit to say, "Let's launch a further period of negotiations, and make every effort to try to reach an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo." We very much wanted these efforts to succeed.

The opportunities are there, I believe. Many of the things that need to happen in any settlement are already in the Ahtisaari plan. To give you an example, protections for the religious communities inside Kosovo, protections for minority rights inside Kosovo, international supervision so that in an independent Kosovo, it's a supervised independence, so that there is a holding of Kosovo authorities to standards, which are based on the international norms of the rule of law and so forth.

There's a lot in there that is meat for discussion and meat for negotiation. If the two sides are able to agree, that is indeed that best outcome and what we very much support. We hope that with that, we would also have a UN Security Council resolution because the strength of the UN Security Council resolution provides a legal foundation which is desirable for all of us. It is very important in that respect.

At the same time, we have to recognize that this is a very difficult issue, one which has a limited solution to this point. We are coming up against some difficult timelines. One of these is that we cannot see the international presence in Kosovo extended indefinitely, the KFOR presence. We feel pressure already, there are stirrings in the population there, so this is something that we can't contemplate being indefinite.

We also have a difficult time seeing a full reincorporation of Kosovo into Serbia. With the ethnic cleansing that took place in 1999 and the conflict that took place as a result of that, it's hard to see going back. So we need something to take us forward. As a transatlantic community in 1999 when there was ethnic cleansing going on, we were able to act. I think we did the right thing; I think we were able to stop the bloodshed that was going on in Kosovo, reestablish stability and then establish, in the wake of that, a UN framework and a NATO framework, the KFOR operation that has been successful thus far. So I think as a transatlantic community as we look ahead, we see the difficulties and the risks, but also the need to move beyond. I hope we can, again, find the way to do that as a community and to do that together.

Jacqueline Grapin: I would like to ask your recommendation to the European Institute on how best to address the question of limitation of resources. There are some issues - Afghanistan, climate change, the U.S., with its huge size, is limited now in responses. Your military is complaining that they have limitations. In Europe, every state has limitations, and we need to do more and more and more. How could the European Institute be useful in addressing some of those issues that we need to - the limitation of resources?

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Volker: Well, that's interesting. You know, I spent a little time on this from a bureaucratic perspective, where we have to make decisions about cutting some jobs here and moving them over here and shrinking budgets because the continuing resolution with the declining value of the dollar and things like that. The way that I try to deal with this issue, and maybe this is something that is helpful for thinking through the European Institute's role, is to discuss what we do as a European bureau and a State Department not in terms of Europe per se, that's one thing that is important that we do, but how we work together with Europe to deal with global challenges. Europe is not the end in itself.

Europe is a stable, prosperous, democratic, enviable part of the world, so Europe is not on our list of problems. So to make Europe the centerpiece would be a way to have people turn their resources elsewhere. What I've tried to explain is that actually you shouldn't look at Europe as a goal in itself. Europe is - or another way to put it - don't put your resources where your problems are; put your resources where your solutions are. If you look at Europe that way, Europe is a place that is engaged globally, that has political capacity globally, has economic resources, has security resources, has democratic legitimacy as well alongside of the U.S., is a critical part of every major international institution.

So if we look at Europe as a resource in the sense that we are dealing with global challenges that affect all of us as a community and Europe is a critical partner in dealing with that, it turns the resource issue on its head. All of a sudden it is not how much can we take away from Europe, but rather how do we apply our resources with Europe strategically to get the best outcomes in the world?

Now I will leave it to you to translate that into the logic of a Washington institution, but I think that something along the lines of illustrating the value of Europe as a global partner of the United States is a way that touches the resource issues, not from a question of quantity, but from a question of how do you leverage outcome.

Jacqueline Grapin: Thank you.