working group A green perspective on EU
conflict prevention
introduction
Let us organise peace by preventing
violent conflict. Greens have always favoured the peaceful-means
approach over sending in 'our' soldiers. Despite all the
preparation for a military EU Rapid Reaction Force, all
EU institutions have underlined that by priority the real
added value of the EU's foreign external relations and foreign
policy must be created by developing the non-military capacities.
First and for all the EU - and its Member States for their
part - should in its policies of external relations politics
stop to contribute to tensions in the world by aggravating
unbalanced financial and trade structures, the strenghtening
of injust, discriminatory and undemocratic social relations
and structures, the exports of arms to conflictual regions,
the exports of waste and pollution, wrong applications of
development-aid and quite a number of other harmful activities.
That is what the experts call 'structural conflict prevention'.
Through its so called Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) as such the EU first and for all should develop far
more firm and comprehensive conflict prevention political
strategies which do not stick to the polite expression of
diplomatic concerns and declarations but seeks for firm
and timely united action in specific situations, for instance
in the Middle East. The EU's so called 'common strategies'
and 'political dialogues' should be developed further in
this perspective. All this falls under 'structural conflict
prevention' as well. Other tools to prevent conflict consist
of offering EU membership to specific countries (the EU-enlargement
process), to draw so called association agreements with
other countries, to promote countries to establish so called
stability-pacts, and last, but alas not least, by contributing
to the reconstruction in war-ruined regions by efficient
programmes to rebuild the physiological and physical damage.
Ernst Guelcher, eguelcher@europarl.eu.int
Paolo Bergamaschi, pbergamaschi@europarl.eu.int
Joost Lagendijk (MEP and spokesman on foreign affaires)
on the Constitutional
Convention, 17th May in Berlin
