Toespraak van minister Timmermans 'on the future of transatlantic relations' in Washington, DC (VS)

Toespraak | 08-05-2014

Thank you very much for the introduction, which is much too kind. Thank you to the CSIS for having me here.

Today, I’m looking forward to talking to you about current issues: about the pivot to Asia, about what binds us, the European Union, the Netherlands and the United States. After this I’ll leave for Ottawa, but before that, the ambassador has agreed to briefly take me to the Vietnam War Memorial.

On Bruce Springsteen’s last album there’s a wonderful song called ‘The Wall’ about one of his friends or somebody he admires from New Jersey, who was drafted into the military. He was eventually killed in Vietnam and his name inscribed on the Wall. I think this song expresses Springsteen’s feeling of guilt at being not drafted, while his friend was. It also may symbolise our attitude towards violent conflicts more generally, our need to be involved or engaged.

It’s important to reflect on this because we are faced with huge challenges in this age, as I believe we need to convince our leaders, our people, our electorate, that geopolitics is back. That we need to act geopolitically. This might entail sacrifices or measures we’re no longer used to taking, and we have to consider the implications of that. We need to convince our electorates of the importance of being engaged, of the importance of transatlantic ties. It is important to look at the world through the eyes of those who have to rekindle their understanding of geopolitical processes.

The first time I went to Moscow after my time as a diplomat was as an official with the European Commission. At the time the Commissioner for External Relations was a Dutchman, Hans van den Broek, and he went to Moscow to visit President Yeltsin. And we were received by President Yeltsin and his then Foreign Minister Kozyrev, whom I had known when I was still stationed in Moscow. President Yeltsin turned to Kozyrev and asked, ‘Who is this man?’ Kozyrev replied, ‘That’s a European Commissioner’. Well, ‘commissioner’ is a familiar word to a Russian, but it doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning. So President Yeltsin was intrigued and said, ‘A Commissioner where?’ And Kozyrev said, ‘Well, of the European Community’. And the President said: ‘Of what?’ ‘The European Union, Mr President’. ‘Ah, Andrey, tell me, are we members of the European Union?’

Just to give you an idea of how confused relations on the European continent were during those years. How confused a country like Russia was in trying to determine its position in this new state of play on this continent. How confused all of us have been for many years on this issue. How confused even a great thinker like Professor Francis Fukuyama was when he announced ‘the end of history’. Oh boy, was he off the mark!

But in Europe we did see an end to something, and I think we need to be brutally honest about this: we Europeans forgot to look at our continent and our surroundings in geopolitical terms. We thought that in this new system, old ghosts were consigned to the past and would not return. We thought that power politics would become less important and that economic relations would dictate how the continent would be run. We thought that – and this was perhaps the biggest mistake – all countries on the European continent were on their way to becoming like us, including Russia.

I think this is something we need to focus on. Russia is indeed changing constantly, but it’s not in the same sort of transition that Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary or other countries have undergone. It took us a long time to see this and to accept and analyse the full consequences of the situation. I believe that today we are waking up to the consequences of this. But this has not translated into public support for the need to respond to those developments.

With respect to our relationship with Asia, I would like to start by referring to Bob Kaplan’s excellent book Monsoon, where he raises a number of issues that are very important for our analysis of the situation. By the way, I disagree with Bob Kaplan when he says that Europe is a thing of the past and should be simply ignored, but I’ll come back to that later on. But I think he’s got a number of strong points, for instance when he says, ‘If there is a confrontation with Asia, it’s not going to be on ideology.’ And that is an important thing to keep in mind when we devise our policies.

Secondly, he says that China will be a reluctant power in terms of geopolitics, because it will want to concentrate on its internal development and will be hesitant to be drawn into international affairs, with the exception of those issues relating to its immediate sphere of influence. I fully agree with Bob Kaplan on this point, which is worth keeping in mind.

Thirdly – and there I think we start to disagree – he argues that trade routes determine political developments. There’s a new issue that has come into play which will be consistently more important in the future, and that issue is energy patterns. Energy patterns are changing quickly because of shale gas, the ongoing discovery of new sources of natural gas worldwide, and also, of course, the crisis between Russia and the rest of Europe. I think we would be greatly helped if we were to look at relations between the Atlantic world and the rest of the world through the prism of evolving energy patterns and evolving energy interdependence. There’s work that needs to be done on this front in the next couple of years, and as a country involved in the energy field, we are certainly going to try and address this question.

The fourth element I wanted to discuss is changing demographic patterns. We tend to underestimate the influence of demographic change worldwide. If you look at a country like Russia, you can’t help but see its demographic challenges: a nation with a very low birth rate, which results in a million fewer people every year, surrounded by countries with much higher population growth. The implications for that are fundamental and have everything to do with America’s pivot to Asia.

Where does this leave Europe, and where does it leave the United States and our transatlantic bond?

First of all, transatlantic ties are stronger than ever before. They are stronger, not just because we have this issue in front of us. Europe cannot deal with it alone, and the United States cannot deal with it without Europe, so we are actually in this together. In the face of these shifting patterns in the more equal world that is now emerging, we have underestimated the role of geopolitics. Those of us with experience in geopolitics are probably better placed to cope with this than, say, China, which is actually very reluctant to become involved in geopolitics. I think this is an asset we should be aware of, develop and use jointly.

The weakness we face is not a weakness from the outside; it’s a weakness from within. Both the United States and Europe need to rekindle public understanding that engagement in international affairs is essential to our prosperity, our security, our future developments.

I think this understanding has been lost for several reasons, and I’ll be brutally honest about what they are: the actions undertaken by countries of the Atlantic world over the past 15 years are not perceived as very successful by our own people. They are not seen as being in line with our own moral values and principles. You look at situations like the Iraq War and Abu Ghraib, or Guantánamo Bay; or the Europeans’ failure to provide immediate solutions in Libya, or our inability to act in Egypt, in Syria.

Many have been prompted to ask: do we respect our own values when we act abroad? Do we respect our own values in our relations with other countries? Sometimes I think in the United States, people underestimate the profound psychological effect on America’s closest ally – Germany – of the realisation that the German chancellor cannot talk on the telephone without being listened to by the NSA. This has a powerful impact on public opinion, more so than people might think. So we need to fix that. We can gain the support of the public by showing that what we do is in line with our principles and fundamental values. If we want to be believed, we need to practice what we preach.

You should have seen the public reaction recently when John Kerry said – quite rightly, incidentally – that ‘it is unacceptable to invade a foreign country and take away part of that country’. For many Europeans, I have to be honest, the reaction was: ‘Well, what has the United States been doing in Iraq?’ They can’t see the difference. So in that sense, it is essential to be fully honest about your own values if you want to convince your own public that these values matter when you act internationally.

And in some cases, as we know, the Obama administration was left with the legacy of the previous administration. It is confronted about that legacy by both the American people and its international partners. In democracies we all have to face this reality. So my first point here is: our values are vital, and abiding by our values is essential in order to formulate a geopolitical stance that will be supported, now and over the long run. That is my first point.

My second point is: people will support us if they understand why. But the ‘why’ hasn’t been part of public debate. It has been discussed less and less in education and in the media in the last 25 years, since the end of the European divide. I believe we live at a time when foreign policy can no longer be based on the ‘trust me’ attitude of politicians: ‘I know you don’t understand it, voters, but trust me; I know what I’m doing.’ That doesn’t work anymore. That used to be the way foreign policy worked – let’s be honest – but it doesn’t anymore. So we need to move to a ‘show me’ situation, where we can show the public that what we do is based on our values and that it’s both in our interests and - third point - effective.

So when we formulate our action, geopolitical action, on a transatlantic basis, it has to be in accordance with our values. People need to understand why it is in our interests and it has to be effective. I think this is the best approach to global issues: Ukraine today, certain issues in Asia or Africa tomorrow, certain relations with our partners worldwide.

In the case of Asia, this means that Europe, in particular, needs to step up to the plate and not just see its dealings with Asian countries as economic relations. We have neglected the geopolitical side of our relationship with Asia. We all fly to China on a daily basis to do business, and then we fly to Japan and to Korea and other places. But we don’t talk enough with our Japanese friends, our Korean friends or our Chinese friends about the challenges they face in their own bilateral or trilateral relationships. We leave that entirely to the United States.

I think that is highly unfair and unsustainable in the long run, given the economic ties between these countries and Europe. Europe needs to take more responsibility in this regard, and in fostering stability and reducing tension in Southeast Asia. We need to engage more and not just leave everything up to the United States. This can start by being supportive of the United States, but at some stage Europe needs to complement this role by devising actions of its own.

Europe must also use its excellent relations with individual ASEAN countries to create more stability in the region. This is something these ASEAN countries are asking for, and we should respond to these requests. Some of us have better relations with individual ASEAN countries, but collectively, we in the European Union should be doing more to help ASEAN, for instance increasing our emphasis on the rule of law and human rights in those countries. There is a willingness to act on this in ASEAN countries: Indonesia has provided leadership here, and Thailand and some other countries are looking to move in this direction, too, though they may be struggling with social unrest.

And we transatlantic partners should understand that the pace will be slower than what we would like. But it will be in the right direction, and we need to work with these countries. For instance, we can develop trilateral programmes to enhance human rights, something my own country has done: the Netherlands wants to be active in promoting human rights in Burma (Myanmar), but it’s very difficult for us, as Europeans, to be seen as active there. Indonesia has developed a number of programmes to strengthen the rule of law and human rights, and to address race relations in that country. In Burma it’s not seen as intrusive if Indonesia provides support. We have some background and knowledge in this area. We have funds we can use for this, and via a trilateral programme linking Indonesia, Burma and the Netherlands, we can be far more effective than with two separate bilateral programmes. It is the sort of cooperation we want to develop more and more in Asian countries.

I hope you will forgive me, but I would like to turn back to the challenges we are facing on the European continent.

It is essential that we do not react to tactics with tactics. What I’m trying to say is this: what the Russian President Putin has been doing in the last couple of months is, in my view, a series of tactical moves. He is great at tactics, but he lacks a real strategic concept.

One thing we’ve seen in Russia again and again over the last 30 years: tactical moves that have unintended but sometimes far-reaching strategic consequences. There is no doubt in my mind that President Gorbachev, when he started with glasnost and perestroika, did not intend to end communism or to bring down the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He thought in tactical terms: ‘If I get rid of alcoholism, if I get rid of inertia by creating more openness, people will be so grateful they will reward me by accepting the Communist Party forever as the ruling party.’

They did not have the capability, or perhaps the imagination, to consider that if you give people freedom, they might also act free. So that was also a series of tactical moves with far-reaching and unintended strategic consequences.

Likewise after the August ’91 revolution, when President Gorbachev came back and Boris Yeltsin saved the day. He’s the one that prevented this backlash from actually happening. I was in Moscow at the time, and I have vivid memories of that. At that point, the tactical move by Yeltsin was to remove a layer of Soviet rule and fully assume the position of the president of Russia, as his counterparts in Ukraine and Belarus did in their countries. The unintended strategic consequence was the end of the Soviet Union. But it wasn’t part of the strategy; it was the result of a number of tactical steps.

And today, the tactics undertaken by Russia are to bring the government in Ukraine to heel. The long-term strategic consequences of these tactics are unpredictable. I do believe we have a strong responsibility, first of all as Europeans, but especially in our relation with our transatlantic allies, to be aware of the possible long-term strategic consequences of these tactical moves.

Does this mean that we will witness a fundamental change in the geopolitical rules of the game? I don’t know, but we might, and we need to prepare for that possibility: better safe than sorry. So even though we don’t know what the strategic consequences of these tactical moves might be, we need to prepare for a number of scenarios, including the possibility of longer-term confrontation on the European continent.

I hope we can keep this from happening, but we can’t allow ourselves to be lulled into inaction by wishful thinking: simply hoping that something doesn’t happen won’t stop it from happening.

We don’t want it to happen. My country joined with Germany and other European nations and the United States – and I really admire John Kerry’s leadership – to do everything we can to prevent this from happening.

But if it happens nonetheless, we need to be prepared. And we can only be prepared if the transatlantic bond is strong and modernised. We can only be prepared if we step up to the plate as Europeans and do much more to create synergies between European armed forces. We are wasting so much money; we are wasting billions of euros in taxpayers’ money because we still have these individual armed forces that do not cooperate enough. All of us in NATO will have to take a look at our defence spending, especially in the long run. I’m not saying this as a warmonger; on the contrary, I’m saying this because I believe we need to be prepared for the various scenarios that may arise.

Ukraine itself is going to be a big challenge, because we’ve also treated that country for 20 years with what I would call benign neglect. I think the United States, if I am not mistaken, has invested at least $5 billion in that country and the European Union collectively probably even more. But we were never very strict with them about things like respect for the rule of law, the treatment of the political opposition, etc. Whereas President Putin is able to stir up unrest in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government, for their part, is unable to mobilise everyone in their military and police forces, because the political class in Ukraine has been discredited completely in the eyes of the population. Their primary interest has been lining their pockets at the expense of the Ukrainian people, instead of creating prosperity for a country that could be doing so much better than it is. So here, too, we need to increase our efforts collectively to lay the foundations of a rule-of-law-based democracy that respects human rights. Everything we have done in Central and Eastern Europe over the last 25 years, often with great success, needs to be applied to Ukraine as well, if we are to create stability in that country in the long run.

Let me finish on this. We have taken each other for granted for too long, the Americans and the Europeans. We will be able to set a course for the future of this world if we stick together.

It is very simple, if we are able to see the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) for what it is: not a free trade agreement. TTIP is a geostrategic agreement. It is a political agreement. It should not be left up to people who know everything about the way you slaughter chickens. It should be something our political leaders should take up and decide on soon. When you have TTIP in place, it will change the nature of the game globally. Because then the United States and Europe will set the rules of the game, and the others will follow suit, including China, Japan and others.

I say this from a position of experience with the workings of the internal market of the European Union. I remember we faced severe criticism when we came up with the idea of high standards. People were saying. ‘You are going to lose global competition if you set high standards.’ But when you set high standards in the biggest market of the world, when you set high standards with consumers who have the greatest spending power in the world, then the rest of the world, who wants to sell you their goods, will adopt your standards. They will not impose their local standards on you.

If TTIP is put in place based on our common values, on human rights, equity and the rule of law, and if treaties and not power politics dictate how we act, the nature of the game will change. And other countries will follow suit, including Russia, sooner or later.

Thank you very much.