Date of release : 18-03-2005

Policy area : General Affairs and External Relations

Event : Informal Meeting of Defence Ministers

After the first working session of the informal meeting of Ministers for Defence of the European Union, Luc Frieden, Minister for Defence, draw the following conclusions on the work in the fight against terrorism.

"We discussed the contribution of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in the context of the fight against terrorism. Terrorism remains a major scourge, a permanent and current menace for our democracies. Therefore we must use the means available to the European Union and the Member States to fight this faceless war. There is no enemy with whom one can negociate. It is therefore a different type of combat to which the armed forces cannot respond as they would in a normal war situation.

The ESDP does not play a primary role in the fight against terrorism, instead it has a supporting role. It is in this supporting role that we have requested that the Secretary-General, Javier Solana, see how we could better utilise the existing military means of the European Union in the framework of the fight against terrorism, if need be. This could be in the area of prevention, or of the protection of critical infrastructures and the civilian population.

I insist that our policies be coherent in the fight against terrorism, just as at the level of the resources of the European Union. This is also the reason why the coordinator of the fight against terrorism, Gijs de Vries, joined us during our meeting on terrorism. I believe that the European Union will be effective in the fight against terrorism only if it brings together in a coherent way all of the means available to it.

In this context, as in others, the European Union can truly provide added value to our citizens by providing more security, more stability. This is one of the reasons why we strongly believe in future developments of the European Union, including in the area of defence. I also believe that the European Constitution paves the way for a safer Europe, thanks to a strengthening of our defensive capabilities."