Debate article
European Policy Centre, Brussels 18 May 2009
Cecilia Malmström, Minister for EU Affairs
Crisis Management in the EU and the Swedish Presidency
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is an honour for me to attend this seminar organized by the EPC.
I was here addressing a similar event two years ago, and the issue of crisis management is even more in focus today. A lot of new ideas on how to develop and strengthen Europe's capacity, in particular for managing transboundary crises, have evolved during this time.
Much of this is thanks to the EPC and your network of researchers. The work that you do is truly cutting edge, and I would encourage you to continue develop thinking on horizontal aspects of Crisis Management.
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In early January, the cold weather took a firm grip on Europe. In Bulgaria, temperatures went down to minus 15 degrees, which is not unusual in winter-time.
The problem was that on that very same day the Russian gas monopoly decided to turn off the gas supply taps through Ukraine. It was a matter of hours before heating hit more than a dozen countries across Eastern Europe.
There was the gas crisis. What started as a commercial dispute suddenly led to serious consequences for millions of citizens in countries in the Balkans and Central Europe. who were forced to endure two weeks of freezing in ice-cold flats. Industries and schools had to close due to gas shortages.
The crisis was resolved after a couple of weeks, and that was thanks to major initiatives from the European Union.
Some important conclusions can be drawn from the two-week gas crisis. Widely differing types of crises and emergencies will continue to arise, unexpectedly, and we must be better prepared to deal with them.
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What kind of safety and security should we expect from the European Union in the future?
Well, somewhat simplified, my answer is that the Union must be able to offer security across the board, in the full cycle from prevention and preparedness, to response and recovery. This can mean anything from preventing pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and a deploying a judicial mission in Iraq, to providing early warning systems for detecting harmful foods in a restaurant in Stockholm or a supermarket in Madrid.
Prevention of crises is a clear priority for the Swedish presidency. However, we are aware that everything can not be prevented, no matter how prepared we become. There is a need to act when a crisis hits.
And regardless of whether we face a terrorist attack in Mumbai, a serious storm in southern Sweden, a cyber-attack on Estonia or a new influenza that risks could develop into a pandemic, the European Union must be able to take action.
Protecting its citizens by preventing and coordinating crisis management in the event of disasters and serious threats is clearly, and must be, one of the core tasks of the Union.
Since last autumn, the European Union has taken major steps forward as an actor in this field.
In August last year, EU foreign and security policy came to the fore in a dramatic manner. When Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, the Russian Federation not only physically crossed a national border; it also violated the rules that regulate cooperation between states.
The actor that most strongly made clear that this was unacceptable was the European Union. It was important that the EU took on this leading role, an event that would scarcely have been possible a few years ago.
Some time later, the financial crisis became urgent. A global crisis requires global solutions, and Europe acted in a uniform manner, demonstrating rapidly that it was a key actor in creating stability in the credit market.
I draw two conclusions from the way in which the EU has acted, facing these two crises.
Firstly, that the EU is also able to effectively manage more serious crises that only involves a single sector. Secondly, that the manner in which we managed these crises was still of an ad hoc kind. Don't get me wrong here. In crisis management you need to act with a large portion of flexibility. This being said, we need a common understanding on what tools we have and how we can use them.
What we lack, however, is a holistic approach and predictability. Everyone working with crisis management knows how dangerous it is to have a system based on narrowly sectorised, ad hoc solutions. To take this process to a new level, we should focus on cooperation between sectors and clear decision-making mechanisms.
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So how do we achieve this?
It is a matter of looking at security with new eyes. The European Union needs to take a more comprehensive approach to manage the threats that we face. We must also distance ourselves from the obsolete distinction between internal and external security. The globalised world means that the threats blur into each other. Clear examples of this are terrorist attacks and communicable diseases: these take no heed of national boundaries.
European efforts will really be lifted to a new level when - being an optimist I rather say when than if - the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force.
The new Treaty contains a solidarity clause, which states that if a Member State is the target of a terrorist attack or the victim of a natural or man-made disaster, it can request help from other Member States, which must then provide assistance.
If a Member State is the victim of a terrorist attack, epidemic or natural disaster, Sweden will do its best to assist. Likewise we will be able to expect assistance if parts of our country is hit by a storm or if Swedes are affected by a disaster on the other side of the globe.
It is this view that will provide the basis of true security, based on solidarity.
Exactly what form this security based on solidarity will take remains to be seen, but I would be happy to take on these discussions during the Swedish presidency.
Moreover, as you know, the Lisbon Treaty provides for a High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, to coordinate the Union's external action. He or she will chair the Council of foreign ministers, but will also become Vice-President of the Commission, which means that the Union's resources can be coordinated in a better way.
A common external action service will be established. What we will see is a foreign service, which will pave the way for more concerted action. An increasingly joint approach with European overtones will emerge, as EU officials and diplomats from the Member States will cooperate with each other. We can increase the number of countries in which we are present, and our combined on-site capacity will improve when we can assist each other.
Another area that will benefit from a new Treaty is cooperation in justice and home affairs. With the new Treaty, it will be considerably easier to take decisions and move forward in areas such as the fight against terrorism and cross-border crime. These issues are indeed closely connected to crisis management and thus need to be part of a more integrated approach to crisis management.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
In six weeks, Sweden will take over the Presidency of the European Union. Extensive work is now underway to prepare ourselves for the issues to be dealt with and the priorities we want to set. But sometimes things turn out like the John Lennon song "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans". Planning is important, but things seldom turn out the way you intended.
Just ask our friends from France and the Czech Republic. From day one, the Czech Presidency had to deal with the escalating situation in Gaza, then the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, and more recently - the Influenza A.
Before the French Presidency had even started, a majority of the Irish had voted no to the Lisbon Treaty. After that came the war in Georgia and the financial crisis in rapid succession.
These crises naturally superseded all their previous plans but on the whole, I think the crises were managed well.
I can assure you that the crisis management unit in the Swedish government is working day and night to predict what crises that may occur after the 1st of July. But, as you are well aware, this is almost impossible. We have to be humble to the challenges ahead and the key word is flexibility.
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So what, then, will be the Swedish priorities in making Europe a stronger actor?
One important factor is to strengthen strategic coordination in the event of crises. We want to develop the ability to share assessments and to produce situation reports in a structured and coordinated manner. For example, if Sweden and other Member States had been able take part of the Italian assessment during the tsunami of 2004, many of them would certainly have taken action sooner than was actually the case.
The EU has a coordination system for major disasters that has not yet been activated. I'm talking about the Council's Crisis Coordination Arrangement. We must make this instrument more user-friendly. One way is through the exercise that we shall be conducting this autumn. Another way is a through a wider discussion on how to make CCA more suitable for crisis.
Moreover, we need to review how our structures can meet the challenges we face. In an inventory the Commission is just finalising, you will find that as many as nineteen services and five agencies deal with crisis management. Very impressive. And the Commission deserves credit for its work.
But with so many actors in the Commission, one needs to discuss how it can keep a horizontal view both when it comes to cross-sectoral challenges or things that fall between the chairs. I have faith in the Commission that it will address this issue and make suitable changes in time for a new Commission to come in.
In this respect, I welcome the policy paper presented by the EPC last week. In my view, one solution could be to reinforce the Secretariat-General. Another option would be to assign the responsibility for horizontal aspects of crisis management task to a commissioner, who could combine this with a few operational tasks. There are different options, and how to organise this in detail will be for the new Commission to decide.
But let me be clear that no matter what solution one might choose the responsibility for handling sectoral crises must rest with the Commission's ordinary structures.
Enhanced coordination must also take place between the Member States and the Commission. Far too often, things occur without being properly coordinated. We saw this most recently after the terrorist attack in Mumbai, where contributions by both the Union and several Member States were significant, but where better coordination would have made the work even more effective. It is difficult to conduct consular work on the one hand, and rescue services on the other, without sufficient cooperation.
Those were some words on the holistic approach. At the same time, we must, of course, develop the various instruments needed for making the Union more operational.
The Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre plays a key role in this, and it should be developed into an emergency centre with more tasks than it has today. With more resources and the appropriate powers and competences, the Centre will be able to conduct better analyses while pursuing better and more rapid coordination.
A prerequisite for enabling coordination itself to function is that the 27 Member States become better at making various types of resources available to the EU, so that we can deal with every conceivable type of disaster. I would be pleased to see Member States cooperating to pool their resources more extensively.
Another area that the EU can develop is consular cooperation. EU citizens are hit by, or present in, many of the crises and disasters that occur worldwide. Evacuating citizens is a national responsibility, but it doesn't seem sensible that each Member State is sending its own jumbo jet to a crisis area - neither for those affected nor for the taxpayers.
The negative experiences of the 2004 tsunami in Asia must be turned into effective and efficient cooperation that allows Member States to work together at all levels when the citizens affected are to be evacuated or rescued, wherever in the world a crisis occurs. An important means of doing this is to increase cooperation between Member States and the Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre also in the field of consular cooperation.
The horizontal aspects of EU crisis management are the responsibility of the General Affairs Council. In order to move forward in this field, I plan to bring some of these ideas up for discussion with Member States during the Swedish presidency.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
"Coming together to make Europe safer" is the title of today's seminar. And this is just what we need to do.
The objective, however, is not for the EU to take over national crisis management. On the contrary - every Member State's own capability is, and will continue to be, fundamental in dealing with crises that affect our own countries. Crisis management at the European level should become an important supplement to activities at home: a considerably larger supplement than is the case today.
Member States must be persuaded to take greater responsibility while at the same time strengthening coordination in Brussels. My vision is for us to build up such extensive cooperation that if one country is the victim of a serious crisis or a disaster, it will be expected that the other Member States will provide assistance.
A single phonecall, and a Member State should be able to receive support within just a few hours.
To achieve this, we must move from ad hoc solutions to predictability. From too narrow, sectorised thinking to better coordination. And this applies to everything, from military crises to forest fires and pandemics, both within and outside the Union.
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I strongly believe that the time when each European country was only responsible for its own security is gone. Today, we are on the way towards a paradigm shift, where 27 Member States take a joint responsibility and join forces to help each other in a true spirit of solidarity and provide the EU citizens with the security they need.
At least in my country, citizens agree with this direction. In a poll conducted late last year, seven out of ten Swedes consider that the EU should take considerable responsibility in the event of a disaster.
Thus a large majority expect something that is entirely reasonable - that we make the EU even better at managing crises and disasters, regardless of whether they occur within or outside Europe. I suspect the results may be similar in other Member States.
When talking about the main achievements of Europe, the single market, enlargement and the euro often come to mind. In ten years and with political leadership and determination, I'm convinced that we'll be able to add public safety and security to that list.
Thank you.
