Speech by the Special Co-ordinator - Brussels, 29 March 2000

Commissioner Patten, President Wolfensohn, Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

From promise to performance" is the appropriate motto for our conference today. You will be able to see that this conference has been thoroughly prepared in many rounds of talks. Optimism and good will are good, preparation is better. Since last summer, we have worked in partnership to get a process under way, which, in the meantime, has become irreversible. A process of strengthened regional cooperation but also of strengthened reform efforts in the countries of South Eastern Europe, with the goal of their integration to European structures.

The preparation of projects and their selection were transparent. This was done in consensus in the Working Tables. The information has been available for weeks ahead of the conference in the internet. I presented and explained my preparatory report to the heads of state and government, and the Finance and foreign Ministers.

Like any large enterprise the Stability Pact requires resources to allow its implementation. The real foundation of the Stability Pact however consists of the political will of all of the participants and their conviction that the pact can only be successful if progress is made in all three areas represented by the Working Tables. Therefore this conference is addressing equally democratisation, economic development and security.

But today the important thing is not just to set the long-term processes in train, but also rapidly, by means of visible results on the ground, to strengthen the sense of a change of era in South Eastern Europe and therefore also strengthen the motivation for thorough reform.

In this connection I would like to thank Commissioner Patten and President Wolfensohn as well as the representatives of the other financing institutions and their staffs, for their support for the Stability Pact, and for the good cooperation in the preparation and execution of this Funding Conference. Today's conference proves that together we can work more effectively. More people are working more effectively together than ever before. Only last weekend, the Prime Ministers of South Eastern Europe made this point about their own cooperation among each other. I have also heard for example from the banks, which have been thoroughly coordinating their work among each other.

I also must thank all Stability Pact partners for their continuous and high-level support for my work. The Stability Pact is a framework, a catalyst, and provides new impulses. The Stability Pact lives from your contributions which, by means of coordination, it optimises and strengthens. The successes are your successes.

A good example is the agreement, brokered by the Stability Pact, for a bridge over the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania. This was signed the day before yesterday by the two prime ministers, in my presence. This bridge-building is a symbol for the radically improved regional and bilateral cooperation in South Eastern Europe, which is there for all of us to observe. A bridge needs road and rail links. We want to ensure that those come about. This important infrastructure connection for the whole of Europe is the subject of a Working Group which in the coming weeks will be sitting together with the European Investment Bank.

The achievements of the region in the Stability Pact also include the "Charter on Good Neighbourly Relations" of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), signed in Bucharest on 12 February 2000, as well as three meetings of prime ministers of the region which have taken place in the last two months alone. These meetings made clear that the current blockage of the Danube is a blockade of the economic interests of the countries through which it flows. Impatience was expressed. It is welcome that the Lisbon-Summit gave the clear signal that in summer the Danube should be navigable again.

I thank the European Union, which has the leading role in the Stability Pact, for its active policy of support and implementation. The decisions of the European Council in Lisbon have made clear that the European Union will work with reinforced coordination and efficiency in the key area of its Common Foreign and Security Policy. It is also important to note the political pressure to dismantle existing trade barriers. Every Euro and in the region itself is better than one transferred to the region.

I also welcome the decisions of Lisbon concerning strengthened support for Montenegro.

It is entirely sensible that the Commission should wish to establish long-term and reliable financial data. And it is understandable that the EU-countries want to know more about the programmes for which their money is used. Both requirements can be brought together through the instruments of the Stability Pact.

In spite of the early successes of the Stability Pact, which I have mentioned, we cannot forget that we are still confronted with considerable problems and dangers, such as in Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro.

It would not be right to overload the Stability Pact with the requirement for short-term solutions to current crises. The Pact was set up as a medium and long-term process for overcoming the structural deficits of the countries of South Eastern Europe, not as an instrument of crisis management. In Kosovo the primary mandate is that of UNMIK and KFOR, for example. At the same time however, the Stability Pact is acting on the question of flanking stabilisation measures by integrating Kosovo into regional structures or by solving cross-border problems such as the removal of blockages at the Blace border crossing.

The Stability Pact has also always made clear that it is not building a wall around the Serbian people. On the contrary, the Stability Pact is waiting impatiently for the moment when it can welcome into its ranks a democratic and peaceful Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Szeged Process, initiated by the Stability Pact, is a key-contribution to peaceful change in Yugoslavia: it is a forum for dialogue and support for the free towns and the free media of Serbia.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

This conference will give a clear message: the Stability Pact is a two-way street. A genuine partnership. This is a conference of reciprocal commitments. The countries of South Eastern Europe are committing themselves to political and economic reforms and regional cooperation. The international community is supporting these efforts in a coordinated way, by means of measures for economic development and infrastructure, technical help for the reforms, and the integration of the countries of South Eastern Europe into the European and Trans-Atlantic structures.

The conference has before it a substantial and at the same time realistic quick-start-package worth more than ? 1.5 billion.

For anyone who might have thought this sum looked modest, I say: this is money for projects of regional significance for the next twelve months. The bilateral donor processes will continue in addition. The focus of this conference has consciously been placed on projects of regional cooperation. For example the EIB has prepared an additional infrastructure package for the near-term future worth ? 2.7 billion. Some very important projects will be able to follow on very quickly from the quick-start-package, such as the building of the bridge between Romania and Bulgaria, or a number of projects affecting the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I hope this will also be the case for refugee return projects which are being discussed here.

This Funding Conference is just the beginning. Further Funding Conferences will follow. But I would warn against a fixation with numbers. The most important thing is now that concrete progress happens. The foundation for our future plans can only be the successful implementation of what is agreed today and tomorrow.

The most difficult part, of course, faces us now. The quick-start-package cannot be allowed to fail measured against its own ambition: the requirement for implementation within the next twelve months. This is a declaration of determination to combat long-winded procedures, slow payment methods and bureaucratic delays. But it also means the implementation of the reforms announced today by the countries of the region. It means more responsibility on the shoulders of all those present in the room. I intend to ask the Working Tables regularly to check-up on the implementation of the commitments made here and to make that their principal task.

Following this conference, a particular focus of the work of the Stability Pact will be to mobilise private capital and private investors. State programmes can only provide an impulse. It is when sustainable private involvement is brought about that our common process can begin to become broader more sustainable and more effective. In this context we will also cooperate more intensively with the non-governmental organisations.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

We already have joint achievements to show. We now decisively have to use the momentum which has come about: the wind of change of change in South Eastern Europe. As I am in constant contact with both sides, I can assure you that the engagement of each side will immediately be reduced if the impression is created that the other side is not keeping to the reciprocal commitments. The Stability Pact has created a process of reciprocally reinforcing positive steps: an upward spiral of hope and cooperation. This must never be allowed to change into a downward spiral of disappointed expectations. I therefore ask all participants to make the greatest possible efforts in those areas for which they are responsible.