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Strengthening Partnerships in South Eastern
Europe:
A perspective from the Office of the Regional Envoy of the Stability
Pact for South Eastern Europe High-Level Conference on Strengthening
Cooperation in South East Europe, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris,
4 – 5 April 2002
By Ramona Calin
Special Advisor to the Regional Envoy for the Stability Pact for
South-Eastern Europe
The European twentieth century started in Sarajevo and ended
in Sarajevo. When the 20th century came into being, it found a
rather frightening South Eastern Europe hosting neighboring nations
that hardly knew one another, which could barely conceal their
Brownian evolution. At the other end of the same century, South
Eastern Europe was still struggling to take its destiny in its
own hands, to define its future while avoiding the mistakes of
the past. Today’s success track record is still scarce.
I do believe that the mainstay of a solid regional architecture
should be confidence based on the values of dialogue, co-operation
and good-neighbourliness. It is high time our region proves itself
to be not only an area of ethnic and religious strife, the "powder
keg of Europe", as it used to be for too long, but also one
of smooth accommodation of interests.
Immediately after the Second World War, a few Western European
countries were nothing but ruins. The stains of that ravishing
war were removed in just a few years, by common joint efforts
of the international community. The main reason for this effort
was that democratic values had to be safeguarded. In 1989, most
countries from South Eastern Europe chose the same way towards
democracy.
Seven maps of South- Eastern Europe are juxtaposed. Internationally,
our region bears at least seven labels: South Eastern-Europe (SEE),
The Balkans, CE -Central Europe, CEEC -Central Eastern European
Countries, PAC – The Pre-Accession Countries, the Black
Sea Countries and lately, the Carpathian/ Danubian zone. Whatever
its accepted label, our identity has often been questioned. Nonetheless,
our nations are deeply rooted in a common Europe. In response
to persisting instability in the region, the Stability Pact for
South-Eastern Europe was launched in 1999 with the goal of fostering
regional co-operation, security, and democracy throughout the
area. So far, approximately 250 projects have been launched under
the auspices of the Pact.
There is virtual unanimity in South Eastern European countries
that the way forward is integration in Europe. It is in this spirit
that the EU, which has assumed a leading role in the Stability
Pact, undertakes to draw South Eastern Europe "closer to
the perspective of full integration...into its structures",
including eventual full membership.
Countries wishing to be admitted must, however, first meet the
minimum conditions concerning democratic, economic and institutional
reforms. This process will require better intra-regional relations
and enhanced co-operation in the field of democratisation as well
as in the economic and security areas. It will also require fostering
a new European Perspective for the South Eastern European countries.
Since the Stability Pact was founded, the Heads of States and
governments of the South Eastern European countries have met regularly
for consultations. At the SEECP Bucharest Summit in February 2000,
they have adopted a "Charter on Good Neighborliness, Stability,
Security and Co-operation in South East Europe".
Co-operative relations have offered more substance to regular
bilateral relations. Most Stability Pact projects and activities
were proposed and are carried out by two or more countries of
the region.
It is the Regional Envoy’s conviction that the Stability
Pact’s culture of cooperation within a framework of diverse
projects represents the initiative best suited to offer countries
in the region the opportunity to prepare for Euro-Atlantic integration.
This is the rationale behind the Stability Pact’s continuous
efforts directed towards enhancing relations between the 11 beneficiary
states, candidates for NATO and EU integration, as well as towards
strengthening their participation in structures such as NATO’s:
the Partnership for Peace and EU’s Stabilisation and Association
Process.
The Regional Envoy’s Office was set up as a new, unprecedented
institution, with the main view in mind to foster regional ownership.
The Office of Regional Envoy operates according to the following
objectives:
- to represent the Special Co-ordinator
and his office of the Stability Pact in Brussels in relation with
the national executive bodies and the national co-ordinators;
- to dispatch decisions adopted thereby to the beneficiary countries;
- to coordinate the work of the Stability Pact in 11 beneficiary
states: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece,
the FYR of Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, the FR of Yugoslavia,
Republic of Moldavia;
- to identify common projects in the region and to find common
solutions;
- to represent the countries of the region in their relation with
the donors;
- to mediate the dialogue between the beneficiary states and the
international financial institutions (IMF, World Bank etc);
- to identify the adequate resources required by projects of regional
importance;
- to facilitate contacts between business people in the region;
- to provide concrete analyses regarding political, social and
economic progress in the region to the European Commission;
- to assess the political benefits of the projects by evaluating
their significance in relation with the EU and NATO, as well as
their technical stages of implementation;
Our three-faced philosophy "CCC"
We co-ordinate the activities of our office on the basis of a
three-faced philosophy: complementarity, co-ordination and communication
- "CCC":
- Co-ordination: We co-ordinate our activities
with the beneficiary countries through their national co-ordinators.
Together with the Office of the Special Co-ordinator, we co-ordinate
the project inventory of every beneficiary country.
- Complementarity: From a EU integration perspective, we foster
complementarity among the countries of the region and their neighbors
(Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary,
Romania, Slovenia, Yugoslavia and Turkey, Moldavia) through a
series of regional initiatives: Black Sea Economic Co-operation
(BSEC), Central European Initiative (CEI), South East European
Co-operative Initiative (SECI) and South East Europe Co-operation
Process (SEECP)
- Communication: We ensure the public image of SPSEE (Regional
Envoy's Office included) in Romania and in the countries of the
region.
Last year 3 billion Euro have been pledged to South-Eastern Europe
at the Bucharest regional conference. An impressive package of
regional infrastructure projects amounting to 2.5 bn Euro were
pledged in the scopes of improving the infrastructure network,
notably in the areas of transport, energy and water. Another important
element was the support for private sector development amounting
to 60 million Euro in the fields of trade financing, SME support
and banking. In addition, Bosnia, Croatia, and the FRY have committed
550 mn Euro for refugee issues, assisted by the donor community
with another 500 mn Euro. These figures give clear evidence of
the international community's determination to support the region.
And they clearly indicate that support is also forthcoming in
times when new priorities challenge world politics.
Significant progress has been achieved under working Table 1
and Mr. Rhondos is here to detail upon the activities carried
under his coordination. In our Regional Envoy’s office,
we have focused mainly in issues pertaining to education, NGOS
liaison and communication. In the case of education, we are personally
involved in the promotion of “two-country perspective history
books”. Together with the Council of Europe we will host
in Timisoara, in June of the current year, an initial workshop
to address this perspective, in the hope that neighbouring countries
will thus understand each other better and will approach their
future with a clearer understanding of their past. In most countries
of South Eastern Europe, history has often been taught through
the mirror glass of the communist legacy. Basically, often times
history has been wiped out from the collective consciousness.
A direct exponent of this period, I remember very well the discrepancies
between the history lessons I was taught by my family and the
history books, in their “pedagogic shape” at school.
This dual exercise resulted in “a refrigerator of traditions
and history” used solely for one’s own’ identity,
and not as an authentic learning exercise. In many ways, this
is changing. But it stays quite the same when it comes to express
trans-border issues, and here I could speak of the Romanian/Hungarian
history books. There is a serious need for both countries to have
a clear understanding of their past, to the highest extent possible.
With the same approach in mind, we look at distance learning
and wish to promote it in the region, to exploit its trans-border
complementarities. We will host, during the month of May, in our
office, the first regional distance learning workshop, along with
the World Bank and the British Council. Stability Pact countries
will meet with major donors to see how they could best benefit
of resources in matters pertaining to distance learning.
Also, at our end we have started working at a more coherent communication
strategy for the Stability Pact countries. We came to understand
that most media groups in the region suffer from a lack of specialized
journalists. While we can not address all the grievances of the
media, we deem very important to attract support for sustainable
training programmes in the areas of European Integration/European
Union matters, as well as issues pertaining to conflict journalism.
We therefore try to have unified training programmes, in partnerships
with national NGOs. This will strengthen the public understanding
of European affairs, before these countries will ultimately join
the Union. In the case of conflict journalism, we hope, through
comprehensive training programmes, to prevent the escalation of
crisis. It turns out that in cases such as Macedonia, the media
played a crucial role in the development of the Macedonian conflict.
We trust that our regional communication strategy could play an
important role in the spreading of public awareness in key areas
such as EU affairs (mostly needed for EU candidate countries)
and conflict.
Under the Pact’s Working Table II for economic reconstruction
and development, 34 infrastructure projects (representing 1,2
billion Euros) have commenced mostly in the fields of road and
street reconstruction. A Business Advisory Council brings together
major global infrastructure companies with regional private and
public operators. The Regional Envoy’s office is promoting
a strong cooperation between the public and the private sector,
with focus on the social cohesion. “Public-private partnerships
within the social cohesion framework” are aiming to link
the public and the private sector in matters of labour policy,
comprehensive human resources policies, enhancing of the employees’
dialogue through better syndicate cooperation. Major privatization
is underway in many of the countries of the Pact and this is only
going to continue in the future. Comprehensive policies are highly
expected to address the needs of the laid off workers. The Office
of the Regional Envoy is assisting to design a sustainable road
map linking the private sector and the reform of the social sector.
The Stability Pact’s vision is that today, no organisation
can solve current problems single-handedly. Thus, in the field
of investment, we are working together with the OECD on the implementation
of the Investment Compact, the goal of which is to dismantle investment
barriers and to promote private investment. The Compact represents:
first, a commitment by SEE countries to undertake policy reforms
to improve the investment environment; second, a commitment by
donor countries to support this process through concrete projects;
and thirdly, a process to monitor reform, identify needs and facilitate
implementation and policy dialogue. The Compact has already issued
“Country Fact Sheets”--which give a snapshot on the
investment environment and major policy issues--and the first
draft edition of the “Monitoring Instruments” which
provide, in table format, a comprehensive and specific list of
policy measures with target dates, responsible agencies, and current
status.
Each country’s work is carried through a Country Economic
Team, which includes participants from government, the private
sector, and the international community.
Progress has also been made on trade liberalisation with the
signing of a Memorandum of Understanding committing the states
of the region to liberalise 90% of their mutual trade in value
by the end of 2006.
Under Working Table III for security we operate three regional
task forces: on organised crime, corruption, and illegal trafficking.
A Regional Arms Control Verification and Implementation Assistance
Center (RACVIAC) has been established in Zagreb and in partnership
with NATO a retraining program instituted in Bulgaria and Romania
prepares military officers for a return to civilian life.
The Pact has also launched an Asylum and Migration Initiative
and is currently formulating a regional strategy to fight international
terrorism. During last year’s October’s regional conference,
the Bucharest SECI (South Europe Initiative) Centre was proposed
to become the regional focal point to address international terrorism.
There is already a significant amount of co-operation between
the SECI Centre and the Pact, but a higher area of common interest
will be developed in light of the terrorist attacks on the United
States.
After the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States,
Europe United embarked in fighting international terrorism. Eradicating
poverty, alleviating economic and social differences among nations:
East and West via regional co-operation, are most necessary tools
of conducting an effective struggle against international terror.
In this light, the Stability Pact is today even more a needed
platform than before September 11th.
When the Pact was created, many viewed it as an alternative Marshall
Plan, a machinery to ameliorate the regions’ hardships.
The Marshall Plan was also a Pact of solidarity. The Stability
Pact is still a new born. Furthermore, a touch of optimism for
a better future is high on the SP countries’ agenda. We
cannot envisage a secure and prosperous Europe with unstable countries
on the periphery of the European Union but unfortunately, to quote
the Regional Envoy, Mr. Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu “what we
have at this very moment is a Europe looking like a three-legged
round table: one leg is damaged, and if it breaks down, the entire
table will crash, in a terrible taste of champagne spilled over
fresh blood.” And here comes the difficult question: why
is it seemingly impossible now to reconstruct quickly a part of
the continent, since the same task was successfully accomplished
fifty years ago?
The Stability Pact acts to coordinate international assistance
dedicated to South-Eastern Europe, designed to allow it to meet
the necessary requirements for integration into Europe. During
the first two years of its existence, the Pact has generated substantial
additional financial support for the region, although perhaps
not as much as it might have been hoped. Also, importantly, it
has significantly speeded up the delivery of this aid. But our
countries can only participate in a competitive European market
if all our citizens share the benefits of the rule of law, with
effective state institutions, transparency and accountability
in the management of public affairs, respect for human rights,
and a say in the decisions that affect their lives. In the end,
the main impetus has to come from the national governments and
not from the international community.
Seven labels for the Balkan region are still paving the way for
rivalry, rather than solidarity in some case scenarios. The Stability
Pact works to build solidarity and end rivalries. It seeks prosperity,
social justice and equal opportunities for all the citizens of
the region, because, in the words of one of the “other”
Europe’s most inspirational voices, Vaclav Havel: “the
salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human
heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in
human responsibility".
Let me now end by thanking our host for this worthwhile initiative.
As a former UNESCO staff myself, I believe that UNESCO, by using
a cross- sectorial approach and avoid duplication, could make
a very good partner for the Stability Pact, especially in programmes
pertaining to communication and education. I personally perceive
your work as that of an organisation giving a particular human
touch to the overall efforts of the international community. This
is why, both the Regional Envoy and myself were not surprised,
but only pleasantly touched by the commencement of the working
document we have received for the preparation of this conference
“it is in this sub-region of Europe that, almost three thousand
years ago, the European continent was spiritually born”.
One of the reasons for which we are here today is to revive this
sentiment.
Thank you for all your work.
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