Address by the Special Co-Ordinator Erhard Busek at the High Level Meeting on Defence Conversion / 2nd Meeting of the SEECP Defence Ministers

Thank you for inviting me to attend this meeting and for offering me the opportunity to highlight what the Stability Pact is doing concerning defence conversion and how we cooperate with our international partners in this area.

As you know, defence conversion in SEE is a multi-facetted subject area, with many recent steps forward, but also with many remaining challenges, where regional and other types of international cooperation would be needed.

First, however, allow me to start with a couple of brief remarks about how the SP is operating.

The SP is an AD HOC COALITION conceived after the Kosovo conflict to promote stability in a wider sense in SEE. The constituency involved covers on the donor side roughly EU, NATO and their member states plus Russia, Japan and Switzerland, plus the World Bank, OSCE and the OECD; on the recipient side the 8 SEE states.

In the course of more than five years, the emphasis within this general objective of promoting regional stability has, however, been shifting from demilitarisation measures and confidence building in a post-conflict situation towards helping the region to catch up with its European neighbours on economic and social development, on having an open society where the rule of law prevails and with good neighbourly relations with open, well managed borders. A lot of progress has indeed been made and, perhaps to our own surprise, we find ourselves now in the midst of paving the way for the SEE countries towards becoming associates and perhaps even partners in the major European and Euro-Atlantic institutions.

The 2nd point I should mention here is that the SP was not established as a funding agency, with its own budget to finance projects in the SEE countries. Assistance was financed through other channels, bilateral and multilateral.

In five years, the Stability Pact has successfully moved from ad-hoc interventions to a consistent regional approach to strengthen stability and foster European and Euro-Atlantic integration in the South East European region. This approach has generated progress in all beneficiary countries and supported regionally coordinated reform efforts in critical areas. We in the Stability Pact see 2005 as a year of important challenge and particular opportunity in South Eastern Europe.

A promising -- indeed essential -- development is the region’s growing willingness to assume ownership of regional cooperation. This can be seen in the increasing role of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) including regular meetings of the Ministers of Defence.

SEECP leaders are working together on the broad issues confronting the region. They have stressed their mutual recognition of the need to work closely together for the benefit of all. This portends important achievement in the coming year. Still, the SEECP and the region must step up to meet commitments made and to rely less and less on the support of the Stability Pact and others from outside the region.

The launching of the Regional Forum on Migration, Asylum and Refugee matters by the SEECP and the 2nd meeting of SEECP Defence Ministers on defence conversion are examples of the close co-operation between the Stability Pact and the SEECP. It is more than important to mention this once again since defence conversion and other security issues as well as Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Initiative (DPPI) remain one of the Stability Pact’s central objectives for 2005.

The topics that bring us together today and tomorrow are of special importance for the Stability Pact. It is clear that much remains to be done – including the fundamental reform of the defence and security sectors - before all countries of the region can be fully integrated in both the European and Euro-Atlantic structures.
The key questions here are how to restructure and downsize military forces and the military-related sector, adapting them to the new security situation and the economic realities of the SEE region, to possible new roles as partners in international peace keeping structures, and all of this again in the light of decisions on the enlargement of both EU and NATO.

Such reforms are currently being prepared or are being implemented in most countries of the region. The challenges which the reintegration of former military personnel, conversion of former military bases, and restructuring military industry by conversion of redundant military facilities to civilian purposes are in our opinion an integral part of overall Security Sector Reform.

I do not see a role for me to provide you with a “perfect definition” of defence conversion I have mentioned above some of the key components. At the same time we are fully aware of the fact that there is a need of increased regional cooperation on destruction of redundant military stockpiles and on taking into account environmental implications. Therefore, field of defence conversion can only be addressed successfully within a wider context of social and economic development.

In the field of defence conversion, the NATO Defence and Security Directorate has taken the lead in the Stability Pact Defence Conversion initiative and I am very satisfied with the level of our co-operation as well as by the progress achieved. I also believe that the substantial contribution of other international organisations NGOs, for example the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC) and the importance of existing regional experience should be very positively highlighted.

SP WT III has recently co-organized with SaM and the Visegrad Group countries (CZ, SK, PL, H) a workshop on defence industry conversion in Serbia and Montenegro.The main purpose of this event was to address existing problems in the defence industry sector in Serbia and Montenegro, first of all by examining how “lessons learnt” in V4 countries could be shared or used. This is exactly the process, which I would like to continue supporting. For the first time, we will discuss a topic which so far hasn’t been very often a subject of international gatherings like today’s one: defence industry conversion. The participants have touched upon a very important, but “sensitive” issue since, and I am fully aware of this, the defence industry has been (and partially perhaps still is) a closed and secretive segment of the economy.

Let me use this opportunity and to inform you that the Working Table III will also have Defence Conversion as the main theme for its meeting in Sofia in May this year. This topic will also includes the follow-up of the High-Level Expert Meeting as well as SEECP Ministerial meeting on Defence Conversion, held on 30 - 31 March 2005 in Bucharest. The Working Table will discuss how the Stability Pact partners may increase their support for the Defence Conversion process in SEE.

Such contributions may also be channelled through Stability Pact Task Forces and associated initiatives, in particular the Defence Conversion Task Force, and through an enhanced role for RACVIAC and SEESAC. In the discussion consideration will also be given to a renewed effort regarding a regional process on military budget transparency, with the support of relevant international organisations. Regarding Defence Conversion in general the perspective of relevant Working Table II Task Forces and initiatives will also need to be taken into consideration.