The escalation of attacks by insurgent groups believed to be linked to al-Qaeda reached its climax on April 12, 2007, when a suicide bombing struck the Iraqi Parliament. The bomber penetrated the Parliament's cafeteria where the lawmakers were gathering for lunch. This was in the heart of the 'green zone', one of Baghdad's most stringently guarded areas.
The attack occurred on roughly the same date as the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The insurgency's message was clear: it can infiltrate and strike anywhere. The American 'Goliath' intent on blowing the wind of democracy across the entire Middle East from Afghanistan to Iraq is still being harried by this reckless and impudent 'David' who should by now have been exterminated but instead is becoming bolder and bolder.
The lesson we can draw from this sensational attack is that the US cannot win this asymmetric war. In fact, the US Congress itself has voiced the general feeling that the occupying troops should withdraw from Iraq next year when George W. Bush leaves the White House. The attack on the Iraqi Parliament is reminiscent of a famous precedent: the occupation of the US embassy at Saigon on 31 January, 1968, when the US ambassador fled the country by helicopter, carrying the Stars and Stripes rolled under his arm. At that time too, President Johnson - like President Bush today - often proclaimed that the victory was at hand.
There is however a profound difference between the epoch of the Cold War and the current situation. The power vacuum left by the American withdrawal from Viet Nam was filled by the expanding influence of the Communist bloc. Today, withdrawal from Iraq would seem to open the way towards chaos, leaving a Middle East on fire and at the mercy of terrorism, organized crime, Islamic fundamentalism and nuclear proliferation. Instead of bringing a new democratic order to the region, the US has generated greater instability. The collapse of the Afghan and the Iraqi regimes under US military strikes has opened the way to state disintegration; and when states fail or collapse, non-state actors such as terrorist groups, warlords, drug and arms traffickers move in to occupy their territory.
To avoid the withdrawal from Iraq being seen as a defeat, it must take place against a less turbulent regional background. One major obstacle is the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, now facing a new crisis. On the one hand, there is the Israeli government - discredited in the eyes of the public by its unsuccessful attack on Lebanon, unmoving on the issue of the settlers, and aggressive towards the Palestinians; on the other hand, Palestine's progressive slide towards the ravine of a civil war. All this removes the prospect of peace negotiations leading to an overall political settlement.
Moreover, the Iranian nuclear program and President Ahmadinejad's threatening declaration that the state of Israel should be wiped off the world map make the situation in the region highly dangerous. At the same time, the Afghan insurgency is becoming more and more active.
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But the US government is responsible for yet another source of international tension which could worsen the West's relationship with Russia and generate the possibility of a new Cold War. Its recent decision to site American anti-missile shield facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland is seen as the latest move in a US strategy of encirclement, which includes plans to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, to grant independence to Kosovo (the Ahtisaari Plan), separating it from Serbia, to seek military bases in Central Asia and to bypass Russia and Iran by laying oil and natural gas pipelines through countries over which it could exert substantial political influence. Russia's reply has been the refusal to withdraw its troops from the Caucasian region, particularly from Georgia and Moldova, the rejection of the Ahtisaari Plan, and the suspension of the conventional arms reduction treaty in Europe, thereby reviving the ghost of a new arms race.
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This unilateralist US foreign policy is not even remotely justified by the defense of vital national interests. It is, rather, the expression of an outdated vision of the world order. To solve internationalproblems, the US is inclined to rely on its military superiority rather than negotiations, and to place greater emphasis on competition than on co-operation.
Had the US offered to suspend the extension of NATO eastward, Russia could well have responded by adopting a much more cooperative attitude in relation to stopping Iran's nuclear program.
Going still further into this question, we should recognize that today there are dangers equally threatening both the US and Russia and which did not exist at the time of the Cold War, for instance international terrorism, and global challenges such as climate change or nuclear proliferation. No state can face these alone.
The world is evolving irresistibly towards a multipolar distribution of power. The decline of American power is matched by the rise of new powers: large states such as China and India, unions of states such as the EU, and non-state actors such as global civil society movements on the one hand, and terrorist and criminal groups on the other. The power vacuum left by the US in the Middle East could be occupied by the EU, provided that it endows itself with the means to speak with one voice. The EU peacekeeping mission to Lebanon, though insufficient, is a first step in the right direction. Only Europe can offer this essential contribution to the construction of peace, since American soldiers are not trained in peacekeeping.
No single strategy offers the prospect of victory against any of the global challenges. There is no military solution to those problems. More specifically, the ordinary tools of war are wholly ineffective as regards the fight against terrorism. It is a fundamental error to conceive power exclusively in military terms. An increasing number of global challenges need joint action. A new world order requires multilateral institutions and co-operative policies within these institutions.

In light of probable increasing threats to Europe during the 21^st century, we need a more coherent and effective EU as an actor on the international stage. None of the 25 nation states of the EU (even the most powerful) can be truly effective or sometimes even relevant acting alone. Our publics seem to grasp this point better than our politicians. Eurobarometer polls across Europe highlight strong support for "more Europe" in foreign and security policy. There is an expectation among our international partners also that Europe should assume greater global responsibilities. On some global issue such as Kyoto and the international criminal court, the EU has already provided leadership, showing what can be done when we are united and speaking with one voice. There remains, as Christopher Hill wrote some years ago, an "expectation-capabilities gap" in EU foreing policy.
The world is likely to become more dangerous for Europe. The security, economic and demographic trends are not encouraging. Europe will continue to grow modestly - in GDP and perhaps membership - but such technological advantage as it may have in areas as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology will be eroded. Europeans will by 2025 comprise a mere 6% of the world population, while Africa and the Middle East will see a high population growth.The prognosis is for tensions and strong migratory pressures in the regions around Europe, at a time when Europe is becoming increasingly dependent on the rest of the world, especially for energy. It is forecast that by 2030 Europe will be externally dependent for 90% of its oil and 65% of its gas. China and India will drive global energy demand, and seek new sources in Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In this and other ways, European security interests may be directly or indirectly challenged by tensions arising not only in the near neighbourhood but also further afield.
Europe has the potential to rise to these challenges and to share in the new opportunities created by emerging markets and globalisation more generally but can only do so by continuing to adapt and develop institutionally.
From the very beginning the Treaty of Rome recognized that there could be no internal market without a customs union that, in turn, could not survive without a common trade policy. Today it is even more clear that internal and external policies are interdependent, especially in a world of open markets and free capital movements. Economic and monetary union has led to the emergence of the euro as the world's second most important international reserve and trade currency, giving increased influence to the EU globally.
Most of the internal policies of the EU have substantive international implications. For example, the completion of the internal market has led to the adoption of EU standards in key technologies around the world (China's motor industry, food safety, mobile communications and so on). EU competition policy not merely provides an important internal regulatory instrument, but addresses issues such as international cartels or abuses by dominant undertakings that may affect global markets. There are also strong demands from third countries to cooperate with EU programmes like research policy, education and transport. The fast development of EU policy in the area of justice and home affairs is reflected in the external dimensions of these issues.
In many of these areas policy is a shared responsibility between the EU and the Member States and this presents particular challenges in achieving coherence. The inaccurately named constitutional treaty tried to deal with these problems. In part this was by proposing a new position of EU foreign minister that would have given the EU - so it was hoped - more coherence, more consistency and more visibility. These were and remain good proposals. I deeply regret the lack of progress on them during the current "pause for reflection". It seems to me that we have too much pause, and too little reflection. However cautiously, we must continue a process of giving responsibility to the Commission to develop policies in the common interest rather than relying purely on dialogue between capitals. We should recognise that intergovernmentalism has generally not worked in the past and is not the answer for the future. The euphemism used for this intergovernmentalism is often the word "cooperation", but co-operation between sovereign states is not enough.This is essentially the failed model that gave rise to the need for the EU in the first place.
One of the main reasons for the EU's success has been adherence to the rule of law. This fact of supranational law at its base distinguishes the EU from all other intergovernmental associations of states. Member States have accepted that they will sometimes be outvoted in the Council in some vital economic and social matters because the EU is a community of law. All Member States are equal before the law. Governments may protest and procrastinate, but in the end the system works because all members accept the primacy of Community law. This law-based approach also characterises the EU's approach to foreign policy. It is sometimes excessively obsessed with agreements, rules and regulations. But I think there is great merit in the EU championing a rules-based approach to the international system.
From its inception, the EU has worked for the gradual opening of global markets and a rules-based international trading system. Had there been no EU there would be no WTO and Europe today would consist of a number of fragmented and protectionist areas totally incapable of contributing to globalisation.
The reason for our success in international trade is that we have adopted a supranational approach to decision-taking. We have a corps of highly professional and coherent officials in Brussels that produce timely and relevant policies taking into account a genuine EU perspective on issues. This allows the Commissioner to speak with the full authority of 25 member states in trade negotiations. Our partners may on occasion not like our policies but they do respect us as a major player.
There are important lessons we can learn from how we operate in the trade field that are equally applicable to foreign policy. The Union could be as effective in other policy areas if it wanted to, simply by providing for a single representation. The aim must be for the future EU foreign minister to speak under a similar mandate in the CFSP field where there is an agreed policy or common strategy. Member States would thus continue to enjoy bilateral relations with third countries but they would not discuss EU policy towards them in areas of agreed EU policy. Solana is already accepted as a spokesman in some key areas of foreign policy, for example in the recent nuclear talks over Iran, but the situation is complicated by the fact that the 'big three' EU Member States tend to operate separately in fields such as this. Other Member States are suspicious of this model, which resembles a directoire rather than a real common policy. I see nothing wrong with smaller task forces being established, under a Council mandate, to deal with particular issues. However, these groups should be under strict reporting requirements to the whole Council and be subject to its ultimate authority when acting on behalf of the EU.
The foreign policy machinery works badly at present. European foreign policy has always been overly bureaucratic. There are numerous squabbles over issues of competence and too many actors involved - the Member States, the Council, the High Representative, the Special Representatives, the Commission, the Parliament, each with their bureaucracies, interests and ambitions. Some improvements have been made as a result of Solana's appointment, yet he operates with woefully inadequate resources. The situation is further confused by the six-monthly rotating Presidency, often setting its own (national) priorities. A plethora of different legal bases for external action in different fields further complicates the picture, as does the fact that the EU itself has no clear legal personality, which would have been remedied by the Constitution.
In light of the challenges facing Europe we cannot continue to allow all decisions to be taken on the basis of the lowest common denominator. I recognise that you cannot have Qualified Majority Vote for military action, but for the vast majority of foreign policy issues there should be no insuperable problem in introducing majority voting. This could be done in stages. First, with an 'emergency brake' to provide for consultations at the European Council in the event of a major disagreement; second, moving to a super qualified majority; and then, some day, in a third stage, to the normal QMV procedures. I understand the Quai d'Orsay carried out a survey last year seeking decisions since 2000 where France would have been outvoted in foreign policy.With the notable exception of Iraq (and here military action was involved) there were no cases. I rather suspect there would be a similar result if the same assessment was made in the United Kingdom or Germany.
Whilst I believe we must move steadily towards QMV in foreign policy, I also recognise that this itself is not a panacea for an improved foreign policy and will take time to achieve. This is why I think there has to be action on a number of other issues. These include the designation of an EU foreign minister (combining the roles of High Representative and Vice President of the Commission), the creation of a European diplomatic service, legal personality for the EU, and the end of the rotating Presidency role in foreign affairs. Some of these improvements require changes in existing Treaty provisions. That may take time. If necessary, I think we can make the first two of these improvements without a new Treaty. These proposals were all in the constitutional treaty and I do not wish to underestimate that fact.
We need to go much further and consider what could be done even before any new treaty is ratified. One priority must be to enhance the complementarity of various policies and to reconcile different objectives (for example in trade, agriculture, development, environment or migration). There is already a high level of consensus on the broad framework of the EU's external objectives. What is missing is a more systematic approach to setting strategic objectives and political priorities at both geographical and thematic level so that policy objectives guide the choice of policy instruments (rather than the reverse). There should also be improved up-stream co-ordination to promote consensus on issues of EU relevance that are subject to discussions in multilateral organisations, fora of global governance, and regional organisations.
Even when the EU has clear objectives and an agreed course of action, the impact and effectiveness of our action is often hampered by mixed messages as well as slow and complex implementing procedures. The EU therefore needs to ensure that once a policy decision has been taken by the EU, all actors integrate this into their diplomatic and public messages as well as in their own policy development.This implies reinforced coordination in Brussels as well as better use of the EU's diplomatic capacities to convey clear, single messages to partners.
There is considerable scope for Member States to co-operate more effectively in third countries. Jointly the EU and the Member States dispose by far the largest diplomatic machinery in the world. The EU has ten times more missions and three times more personnel at its disposal than the US. But is Europe as effective as the US in foreign policy? Are we using the human and material resources which we collectively invest in foreign policy in the most effective way?
If foreign ministries do not ask the question, finance ministries will certainly ask why there needs to be 25 separate EU Member State missions, plus a Commission delegation, in countries x, y and z, when the EU is supposed to operate a common foreign policy. We must also ask ourselves what kind of people should we be recruiting to serve Europe's interests. European diplomacy needs more experts on climate change, inward investment, migration and terrorism.
There is also much that could be done to improve co-operation between Council and Commission. There should be increased sharing of intelligence and a greater exchange of diplomats and officials between the Member States and the EU institutions. A major increase in the tiny CFSP budget is also necessary if the EU is to make any progress towards fulfilling its global ambitions. At the same time, there needs to be clarity as to responsibility for different budget lines. Defence ministers also need to become more involved in EU affairs. It is surely time that there was a European defence white paper rather than 25 separate papers. Finally, I am convinced that it will be important to enlist the support of the European public, through the involvement of the European Parliament and national parliaments as well as the media and NGOs, for the goals of the EU in foreign policy.
In conclusion, the EU has developed steadily as an international actor during the past decade. Much has been achieved but the record could have been better if we had acted quicker through strengthened institutions. The proposals I have outlined would be seen in some capitals as being at the modest end of the spectrum, but if implemented they could lead to a significant improvement in the EU's external performance. Of course, foreign policy remains a sensitive area and Member States are keen to retain their historic prerogatives and traditional links. Foreign ministries are also reluctant to negotiate themselves into a reduced role while there remain unanswered questions about legitimacy and significant differences of foreign policy culture, experiences and expectations. But if we are to meet the challenges of the 21^st century we have to recognise that the adoption of the Community method would bring significant advantages. In the short-term, individual actors and institutions may see advantages in the freedom of manoeuvre that comes from exercising their responsibilities in an autonomous way, but in the medium and long term, the global influence of the EU will depend upon the ability of the Member States to speak with one voice - and to take the necessary decisions in a timely manner.
Excerpts from the Charlemagne Lecture - 22^nd November 2006

While still a student in July 1946, I was authorised by Europa-Union [Switzerland] to contact similar pressure groups in other countries inviting them to a conference to set up a federalist umbrella organisation to which we could all belong. The event took place at Hertenstein on the banks of Lake Lucerne and I was appointed rapporteur. Our conclusions - the Hertenstein Programme - set out the basic principles for a European Community on federal lines as 'a necessary and essential contribution to world union'. These principles were publicly announced in Lucerne's large Congress Hall on the 19^th of September 1946 while - by a happy coincidence - Britain's famous wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, speaking at Zurich University that very same day, called on our continent's war-torn countries to work together to create what he called a sort of United States of Europe. 'Let Europe Arise!' was the key message.
Over our long history many thinkers and political or military leaders from Charlemagne onwards have spoken of our continent's geographical and cultural unity. Some have tried to achieve political unity by force. But no such attempts succeeded. A Europe built by undemocratic inter-state agreements - that is, on a non-federalist basis - has no chance of survival.
With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire after Word War I the Viennese found themselves living in a world capital ten times larger than was necessary for the administration of a small country such as Austria. It was then that Count Coudenhove-Kalergi thought of restoring the empire in a new form: namely, a confederation extending over the whole of Europe with Vienna as its capital and the Hofburg occupied by a president, replacing the emperor. Coudenhove thus joined the long list of prominent persons aiming to unite Europe from the top down.
His campaign, under the name 'Pan-European Union', was the beginning of the modern movement advocating a European Union. By holding meetings, publishing books, but above all by organising congresses and influencing political leaders, Coudenhove won the support of the majority of the contemporary heads of state and government such as Masaryk, Stresemann, Benesch, Mussolini, Briand, Dollfus and others - an élite circle with no democratic base who believed they could reach their goal without taking public opinion into account and without support from the citizens of those states they wished to unite.
Not only did this constitute what was later to be called 'unionism' - that is, confederalism as opposed to the creation of an American-style federal state nor following Switzerland which, with 22 sovereign states and four different languages, would seem the ideal embryonic model for Europe. It also anticipated the 'institutionalist' principle which postulates the primacy of the economy over politics.
Supporters of the pan-European idea undertook certain initiatives, among others in the League of Nations. The Briand Plan was one example. In the interwar period the French foreign minister Herriot and other statesmen also tried to put Coudenhove's ideas into practice, but without success. They were joined after World War II, and after Churchill's speech, by Robert Schuman [the Monnet Plan], Konrad Adenauer, Paul-Henri-Spaak, etc. What they all had in common was that they were addressing the heads of state and government, and at best the national parliaments.
Coudenhove's initiative did not succeed in the interwar period, nor did it prevent the outbreak of a second World War. Nevertheless, it was in line with this tradition that, in 1946, Churchill re-launched the call for a European Union in his memorable speech at Zurich University. It found support in the European Movement led by his son-in-law Duncan Sandys and was later developed by the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak and taken up by the two Frenchmen Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, leading in the end to the European structure with which we are today familiar.
In parenthesis it must be said that under pressure from the changed situation after World War II, Coudenhove-Kalergi's organisation lowered its sights from the dizzy heights of prime ministers and heads of state and turned its attention to the level of parliamentarians.
But the history of the European Union can be viewed from another angle. The participants at the Hertenstein conference of September 1946 were not politicians nor government representatives. They were members of voluntary organisations representing no-one but themselves and their views were rooted in the general thrust of public opinion. For them, the European unification process should begin with the election of a constituent assembly to draw up a European constitution. These 'constitutionalists' or 'federalists' expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the alternative, inter-governmental approach.
At that time the Swiss branch of Coudenhove's Pan-Europe Union was led by Hans Bauer, then a young student, and the dramatic split in1934 between these pioneers of the two different approaches will not be forgotten. Bauer dropped the word 'Pan', merged with the Young Europe organisation, and under the name 'Europa-Union' launched the Swiss Movement for the foundation of a United States of Europe by democratic means through the ballot box and on the basis of the majority expression of the will of the people. The historical impact of this change of direction, rooted in Switzerland's long democratic and federalist traditions, should not be under-estimated.
As the centre for all such activity was in French-speaking Switzerland, the task of organising the 1947 Europa-Congress in Montreux also became our responsibility. For this event so many people registered that it became necessary to hold two separate congresses: one aiming for a world federation, and the other for European unification. This last led to the foundation of the Union of European Federalists under the leadership of Hendrick Brugmans.
There followed the May 1948 Congress at The Hague. All organisations promoting European unity were present, including Pan-Europa, the federalist UEF, and the unionist European Movement which dominated the proceedings. In the debates the dramatic and fundamental differences between the two approaches became very clear.
Under pressure from the institutionalist-orientated organisations and from the European Movement led by Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys the 'constitutionalists' began to give way. The fatal idea, by then established in the European Movement, that economic ties would slowly and automatically lead Europe towards political union predominated, while the 'federalists'- including even committee members of their umbrella organisation, the Union of European Federalists - reacted passively, with disbelief, even naively to this development. The Congress, dominated by Winston Churchill, agreed to establish the Council of Europe and opened the door to 'institutionalism'.
Both approaches shared the strategic aim of unifying Europe though they were divided on tactics. The politicians' purpose was to foster a European awareness by establishing institutions such as the Coal and Steel Community, for example, which would lead more or less automatically to political union. Whether this 'institutional' or 'functionalist' tactic will lead to a clear strategic goal - namely, establishing what form of political structure Europe will adopt - is so far unclear. The evidence indicates that 'institutionalists' were and are mostly proponents of a looser European association - a position which led to the Rome treaties of 1957 and ultimately to the present status quo.
The question remains, is it possible - with their two different and often antagonistic visions of Europe - to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of both the Churchill speech in Zurich and the Hertenstein conference? After a short hesitation the answer must be Yes! It was hard wrangling over disparate goals which led to the agreement to meet at Hertenstein in order to work out common positions which could form a programme for action.
For what is federalism? It is indisputable that the principle of equality first enunciated by the USA, then in the French Revolution, and accepted by western society is now the sine qua non of every community, whether long established or still in the process of formation. Federalism between nations is the equivalent of equality between human beings. If our aim is to unite peoples and nations through an interstate system, we cannot ignore this principle of equality. Any lack of autonomous freedom, or of equality of opportunity and power could have the consequence of leading to conflict and possibly civil war.
The wheel of history has no reverse gear. But we can learn from history. Our contribution to Europe should be to restate the values set out in the Hertenstein Declaration and to bring into the ongoing process of unification the insights then achieved - namely, that Europe must be federal in structure and be built from the bottom up. "Let Europe Arise!"Yes, but as a federal state with a constitution which is close to the people and drawn up by the European Parliament.
Edited extracts from the speech delivered at the 60^th anniversary celebrations, September, 2006

On a peaceful spring morning in 2007, a Korean student named Cho Seung-Hui, armed with two guns, killed 33 people in the dorms and classrooms of the University of Virginia Tech,where he was about to get his degree. The majority of the victims were young students, like him, some were professors. One of them was the survivor of Nazi concentration camps. This rampage, the most violent ever in the United States, shattered the conscience of the nation.
It happened while the Country was debating the outcome of the war in Iraq and the fate of its values of freedom and democracy. And it has re-opened a deep wound: how is it possible to reconcile the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which clearly asserts the right for citizens to be armed, with the change in attitude among a great many citizens, in favor of some sort of control over the nearly unlimited dissemination of all kinds of weapons?
The answer has come from Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York, the man who imposed zero tolerance in his city against criminals, who claims to be the only real guarantee that the country will be protected from terrorism and who is running for the 2008 White House election as a Republican. His party has been an old time staunch ally of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which promotes the right to be armed and which asserts the inviolability of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. In May, Giuliani announced, among other things, that he would favor some form of weapons ban (on that occasion he also spoke in favor of the right to an abortion and the right for gay couples to form civil unions) creating a storm within the rank and file of his party. In fact, with his strong and outspoken statements, he was splitting the coalition of the religious right and fiscal conservatives that has dominated the party for the last 25 years, changing the character of the United States of America. If there were more people advocating the right to be armed in recent years, it was partly due to the wave of religiosity that has penetrated the country, searching for the original values of the Republic and in defence of tradition.
Among these is the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states that a well-regulated militia is "necessary to the security of a free State" and prohibits Congress from infringing on "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms". We can guess that the Founding Fathers were legitimately concerned that British forces might try to destabilize the young democratic American experiment. And we can understand the encouragement for keeping a revolutionary force ready to intervene in defence of freedom and independence. But trying to revive the indomitable spirit of the Founding Fathers by allowing all-comers to carry arms in 2007 is a failed proposition. The individual states making up the American federation have a National Guard at their disposal now, armed and dedicated in the first instance to protecting the individual state even from the danger of domestic ganglike mobs. And certainly there is no danger of a British attack in sight. Besides, by now the idea of the militia has warped into an ideology that is anti-federalist and hostile to the central powers which led to another tragic episode, the Oklahoma City bombing. While it may be legitimate to believe that an American has the constitutional right to possess arms, including weapons like hunting rifles for sporting pleasure, it is harder to understand why there are no limitations on gun licenses. Proposals put forward in Congress have been rejected because of heavy lobbying from the NRA; even the simplest, like requiring people who buy firearms to be registered, having a thirty-day period to see if the buyer has a criminal record or banning the purchase of weapons like sub-machine guns and AK47 rifles more useful for war than for sport.
That is why we cannot ignore the connection between these two key developments in the early months of 2007: the Virginia Tech massacre and the revolutionary position of Rudolph Giuliani, who is courageously alienating established longstanding principles of the Republican party. We know that Giuliani will not promote a total ban on firearms, but establishing a position for some kind of control may end up changing the internal debate. We know that stricter regulations will not necessarily keep a lunatic from getting his or her hands on illegal arms to carry out a massacre. And yet, they may. They certainly help to lessen the number of guns in circulation; and to isolate those people in the United States who, disguised as the majority, insist on turning the 21^st century into an epic tale of the Wild West.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: 2 February 2007 - EU Commissioner Louis Michel and the Chairman of the Commission of the African Union Alpha Oumar Konaré launched a public consultation process on a joint EU-Africa Strategy, which shall develop a political vision and practical elements for the future partnership between the EU and Africa.
For the first time ever the European Union and the African Union will develop a joint strategy for the future of their partnership. This strategy should be adopted by the EU/Africa Summit to be held in Lisbon in the second half of 2007.
In 2005, the EU presented its own Africa Strategy, putting Africa at the heart of its political agenda. With the new EU-Africa strategy which will be agreed jointly between the European Union and the African Union, a decisive step will be made to further develop the existing political and strategic partnership between the two continents, a partnership based on common interests and mutual respect.
In order to define the main challenges, objectives and priorities of the EU-Africa Strategy, a wide consultation process of stakeholders in Europe and Africa has been launched by Commissioner Michel and Alpha Omar Konaré, Chairman of the Commission of the African Union. At this occasion Commissioner Michel said: "I would like to invite today members of the civil society, trade unions, entrepreneurs and all African and European citizens concerned with and committed to the future of our continents to make your voices heard and provide your valuable inputs to this important process."
The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Konaré, said, "I request all Africans, whatever their social status, in Africa and in the Diaspora to participate in this consultation designed to collect opinions about the future of Euro-African relations, addressing challenges or suggesting solutions to issues that may shape the EU's and Africa's common future. In a two stage process, the consultation will feed first into a draft discussed at the EU-Africa"Ministerial troika"meeting in Brussels on 15 May and secondly into the final EU-Africa strategy which should be adopted towards the end of the year at the EU/Africa Summit. The consultation is carried out via a special website, http://europafrica.org.
This article was first published on United States of Africa News, N. 4, Winter 2006-7

The 24^th Congress of the World Federalist Movement, held in London in 2002, passed the resolution A New Bretton Woods for a new International Economic Order, proposed by Guido Montani. For the first time since the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions, a new currency, the euro, was challenging the dollar in its role of international currency. Monetary unification had become a concrete goal to be pursued by regional organizations in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The Bretton Woods institutions, the market and the national states were proving unable to cope with the global financial problems and to assure a sustainable and equitable world development. In such a context, the WFM committed itself to support the creation of regional forums with the task of working out proposals for the creation of a world economic and monetary union, provided with limited, but real, taxation powers, which could stabilize international economy and further a sustainable development and a just international economic order.
Alfonso Iozzo and myself put forward, with the aim of putting that resolution in practice, a proposal published in this review on June of last year¹. I summarize its main points: the current, fundamental malfunctions of the financial system are not sustainable; the redistribution of weights in the world economy makes it unthinkable to replace one national currency with another (as happened in the passage from the pound to the dollar) in the role of international currency; globalization of the economy requires a multilateral and cooperative system of economic governance, founded on a world unit of account (an embryo of a single currency) linked to a basket of currencies where each currency is to be weighed according to the significant economic and human-development-related parameters of the area using it; the dollar reserves should be convertible into world units of account, upon payment of an exchange fee to be assigned to the UN; the International Monetary Fund, once so reformed as to give democratic representation to all regional areas of the world and to ensure that decisions are taken by a qualified majority, should carry out the functions of a UN (it too to be made more democratic) Council of Economic Ministers; the Bank of International Settlements should carry out the peculiar functions of a world monetary system; the World Bank should become the UN Agency for human development and environmental sustainability; new institutions should see to the evaluation of global risks and to overseeing the financial institutions and markets at the global level.
On the eve of the 25^th Congress of the WFM, it may be useful to briefly consider some recent facts and new ideas that make it even more necessary and topical today to convene an international conference for the reform of the world financial system. Among the facts, a special importance have the continuous worsening of the dollar's position abroad; the signs, on the part of important countries and areas, of unilateral strategies aiming to abandon it, and the creation of a special advisory group at the IMF. Among the ideas, Stiglitz'² proposal envisaging a reform of the global economic system and the emission of "global greenbacks"stands out.
The IMF (at the Singapore meeting of September 2006) has instituted a special advisory group on the fundamental malfunctions, with the aim of adopting concerted measures for relieving them. Members of the group are the United States and its main creditors: Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and the euro area. This decision is significant in many aspects.
It officially acknowledges a dangerous situation, kept for some time under severe scrutiny by the circles most interested in the economic policy choices made urgent by the enduring and worsening of those malfunctions³. The deficit of the US current-account balance has reached in 2006 the amount of 850 billion dollars, or 6.5% of its GDP; the net foreign indebtedness has thus grown to about one third of GDP, and continues to rise unchecked despite the dollar's devaluation. Decades of neo-liberist policies, instead of fostering an increase of savings, as forecast by the all-too-celebrated Laffer's curve, have produced an excess consumption financed by the luring of savings from the rest of the world. The tax cuts to higher incomes and the increase of military expenditure have caused a negative saving for the government, while family savings too have decreased to zero. The continuous expansion of the dollar as international currency, after the declaration of the dollar's non-convertibility into gold in 1971, was founded, so to speak, on the oil convertibility guaranteed by the US military supremacy in the cold-war context, which was freezing the emergence of other groups of countries and the rise of a multipolar-system configuration. Today, things have changed. The crisis of the US hegemony has created the space for the emergence of new economic powers and the formation of ever more autonomous regional areas.As resources are absorbed by the military industrial establishment, the provision of world public goods, vital for the globalization process to be physically supported and socially accepted, is impeded. The US deficit is no longer spontaneously financed by the markets, but by governments, in particular the Chinese and those of the other countries and areas called upon to be members of the IMF special advisory group.
This highlights another significant aspect of the IMF decision, the political one. The IMF control is shifting, for the first time, from the excessive indebtedness of poor countries to the financial situation of the superpower, and does so by creating an official consultation site among debtors and creditors in the IMF context. Moreover, for the first time the euro area is invited as a unitary participant in the advisory group, despite the continuing division of its national representatives in the Fund's decision-making bodies. Such novelties can be interpreted on the one hand as the beginning of the end of unilateralism, at least in the economic field, and a signal of a tendency to look for cooperative solutions at regional (in the wake of the euro) and world level. On the other, the significance of such novelties is greatly diminished by the advisory nature of the group and by its composition: the fact that only China, among the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is part of the group brings to mind the procedures of a preliminary agreement, rather than the spirit of a conference aiming to create a new international economic order. The creditor countries of the group, although they have initiated regional financial-unification processes that in due time could produce effects comparable to those already accomplished in Europe, are at the same time putting in place unilateral and bilateral strategies of the kind "every man for himself". For example, China, after having unpegged the yuan from the dollar in 2005, has now instituted a Fund for investing and diversifying part of its monetary reserves. A wise decision, considering that US investments abroad (mostly direct investments) yield an average return of 7% and tend to revaluate themselves, while foreign investments in the USA (mostly bonds) yield a meager 2.5% and suffer heavy devaluations. A risky decision, if one recalls Japan's painful experience: development model Borderless Debate: Globalization and World Federalism based on exports, dollar accumulation and then dollar devaluation, portfolio diversification through real-estate investments in the USA and then burst of the real-estate bubble, huge investments in Wall Street and then collapse of the stock exchange market, with the result of years of recession from which just now an exit may be glimpsed. Anyway, China's is a unilateral decision, that will affect the value of the dollar and the other currencies used in the international scene, and in the end will also affect the competitivity and the real economy of countries that have to bear the burden of global interdependence with no possibility to participate in its governance. From the unilateral decisions to create "baskets of reserve currencies", unjustified fluctuations of exchange rates are produced, which are not coherent with the goal to make macroeconomic regulations, remained national, correspond to the needs of the economy undergoing a globalization process. Examples are the euro's appreciation despite its area does not contribute to create the fundamental malfunctions, the pound's revival despite Great Britain is supporting the US in creating the fundamental malfunctions with a current-account deficit of 4.5% of its GDP, the yen's depreciation despite Japan's trade surplus. More in general, the proliferation of unilateral and bilateral initiatives contribute to increase uncertainty and the distrust in multilateral institutions, and to intensify the search for ways of better insuring oneself, as demonstrated by the increasing of currency reserves by all countries, the in-advance reimbursement of debts to the IMF, and the diversification process of reserves, implying the reducing of one's dollar-denominated holdings. Therefore, it seems ever more urgent to create institutions and instruments that allow: to avoid that the decline of the dollar's international role produces a financial crisis and an economic recession at the global level; to harmonize national macroeconomic regulations; to favor a proper use of the planet's resources and their allocation to an equitable and sustainable development; to guarantee an adequate production of those public goods lacking which the world market would greatly suffer. This is what an international monetary conference, a "new Bretton Woods", should deal with.
There is, as Stiglitz' reflection points to, to make globalization work. On the one hand, globalization has brought with it a withdrawal of (national) public action in the fields of regulation, redistribution, correction of "market's failures", prevention and solution of financial crises. On the other, the crisis of national states and the delay in the creation of supranational institutions (similar to those that were set up to favor the formation of national markets) are by now compromising the globalization process. We are faced with the possibility and the necessity to bring about a U-turn. The attempt to exercise a unilateral governance of the global economy, of which market fundamentalism is the ideological guise, has failed. Market fundamentalists apply their "perfect competition" model as if that would exist in real life, whilst the actual free-exchange is characterized by power and information asymmetries, by cartels,oligopolies and monopolies, by non-rational choices. However, we must avoid that the rejection of unilateralism and fundamentalism brings with it attitudes of refusal of globalization, and nationalist regressions. In order to avoid that globalization fails, it must be governed.
Stiglitz won the Nobel prize for economics precisely for his studies on asymmetries, and at the same time he knows from within the mechanism of governance, having been Clinton's advisor at the White House and Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at the World Bank, a post he left in protest against how the Asian crisis was managed. It is no surprise then that it is him to provide the first great systematic contribution to the solution of the problems posed by globalization of the economy. In his work, concrete reforms of trade regulations, the book-keeping and use of natural resources, environment protection and an equitable sharing of its costs and benefits, the control of multinational companies, the management of debt of poor countries and the guidelines for how to allocate funds are systematically arranged by integrating all of them through a clever use of existing organizations and mechanisms, the play of incentives and disincentives, and the creation of international tribunals. For the purpose of this article, suffice it to highlight Stiglitz' proposals presented in the last part of his book: "a reform of the global reserve system"⁴, and"a democratic globalization"⁵.
All countries accumulate reserves in order for them to escape, should monetary difficulties arise, the conditions imposed by the "Washington Consensus" rules. The reserves-to-imports ratio has shot up after the Asian crisis. Such a form of risk protection, Stiglitz observes, is, first of all, too costly: at the end of 2005, world reserves amounted to 4500 billion dollars and were invested at a 1-2% interest rate, whilst the possible return from investments in developing countries could have been as high as 10-15%; secondly, it produces a lower, insufficient global demand; finally, it creates monetary instability, instead of constituting a protection from it. Thus he proposes to replace the present system, based on the dollar (in addition to which the euro is beginning to be used), with"global greenbacks". Should the US refuse to support the new system, which would make it lose its privilege of getting indebted in the same currency it has the power to issue, the other countries should go on with a concerted diversification of their reserves, so as to make it necessary for the US to get indebted in the global currency instead of dollars. Stiglitz'plan, to be carried out under the auspices of the UN, contemplates biennial 100 billion dollar-worth emissions of "global greenbacks"; they are to be added to the 100 billion dollar yield of the Carbon Tax, proposed in another part of his book, and to the 300-400 billion dollars coming from a better use and the decrease of global reserves: all these resources should be earmarked for the production of global public goods and for the realization of a better social justice to make globalization sustainable. At the international level, democratic public institutions should be created, as necessary to make globalization work, starting with several reforms of the existing institutions.
In sum, the international monetary system is on the brink of ruin and only decisions taken in Beijing, in China's national interest, are so far preventing it from falling into it. Keynes suggested in the 1930s and 1940s the necessary corrections for the survival of the national systems of political economy. Similarly, Stiglitz is suggesting today the corrections necessary to make the global economic system sustainable. We have once again a "practical visionary"6, but there must be a strong political initiative for convening an international conference that avoids more unilateral steps and gives origin to a multilateral governance of globalization. The WFM should take upon itself the task to promote it.

1 - Alfonso Iozzo, Antonio Mosconi, The Foundation of a Cooperative Global Financial System. A new Bretton Woods to confront the crisis of the international role of the US dollar, in The Federalist Debate,Year XIX, Number 2, June 2006
2 - Joseph E. Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work, 2006
3 - The most enlightening analyses, in my opinion, are those of the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, directed by Fred Bergsten, and of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium, directed by Daniel Gros. Of the former I suggest in particular the study, covering several foreseeable scenarios, by William R. Cline, The United States as a Debtor Nation, Washington, DC, 2005. Of the latter: Daniel Gros, Thomas Mayer, Angel Ubide, A World out of balance?, Brussels, 2006
4 - Ibid., Ch. IX
5 - Ibid., Ch. X
6 - So is Keynes defined by his biographer Robert Skidelsky

In a message addressed to the supporters of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly in May 2007, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former United Nations Secretary-General, said: "If the process of democratization does not move forward at the international level, democracy at the level of the nation-state will also diminish. In the process of globalization, problems which can only be solved effectively at the global level, are multiplying and requirements of political governance are extending beyond state borders accordingly. Increased decision-making at the global level therefore is inevitable. We need to promote the democratization of globalization, before globalization destroys the foundations of national and international democracy."
According to Boutros-Ghali, "the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations has become an indispensable step to achieve democratic control of globalization."

Fernando A. Iglesias
Globalizar la Democracia. Por un Parlamento Mundial
[Globalizing Democracy. The Stand for a World Parliament]
Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2006
World Federalists have been saying so all along: the real problem of today's world is to "govern" economic globalization, endowing it with democratic institutions, and not to stubbornly oppose it. This book by Fernando Iglesias deals with that issue in depth, trying to provide concrete and constructive answers, historical and theoretical evidence, pitiless but not catastrophic analyses of the state of world relations and institutions. The thesis that he expounds in an extremely clear and convincing way in the book is summarized thus in the introduction: in order for globalization to be made democratic, democracy must be globalized; in order for democracy to be globalized, there must be a world Parliament. And upon an eventual world Parliament he dwells with details - including technical details - about its constitution, its functioning, its tasks, and even its venue and the number of representatives, pointedly answering to the objections on its alleged non-necessity, impossibility, insufficiency and dangerousness. Coming back, however, to the fundamental point (that is, the necessity to democratize globalization) and going to its root, Iglesias explains its causes with an argument that bears little dispute: the discrepancy between the political development and the techno-economy, and the injustice coming from a manifestly unfair global order have produced global crises that must be countered in a rational and democratic way, with global - not inter-governmental or inter-national - institutions of a parliamentary type.
The fact is that on the one hand the economy is ever more unconnected with the territory, and on the other the national institutions are proving inadequate to solve today's problems: "to face globalization's challenges equipped with national instruments is like trying to cross the sea with a bicycle"- is Iglesias' telling example. And note that international institutions - from the NGOs to the various UN, IMF, etc. - are already proliferating, and the intergovernmental ones are already and dangerously taking the shape of an anti-democratic and potentially totalitarian world State! They must be made more democratic. In addition, for those who still have doubts about the positive nature of globalization, here is just one figure among many: the richest 20% of the planet is the most interconnected and globalized, whilst the poorest 20% are the ones in the opposite condition. Any attempt at fighting globalization by closing oneself in his own nation-State - with an "every man for himself!" spirit on the part of the better-off, and with a third-world-supporter nationalism on the part of the worse-off - cannot be but counterproductive. The ideas around which the arguments of the book revolve are those dear to the federalists: opposition to international anarchy, supranationality, transnationality, subsidiarity, universality of law and ethic anti-relativism in its most extreme forms ... An anti-nationalist spirit is apparent in each page, with terms like "zombie" not rarely associated with existing national-State institutions. Today's national democracies are considered as "unable to save the world, but able to destroy it". Iglesias does not, in fact, want their complete destruction: rather, what he wants for them is deep renovation and retrenchment.
From the viewpoint of this South-American writer, also the viewpoint of many Italian federalists, from Altiero Spinelli to Lucio Levi, everything has an historical dimension.There are no institutions or forms of political organization that are absolutely good or progressive, whilst others are of an opposite type. If "being nationalists was progressive in the era of feudal, monarchical and papal powers, and being internationalists was so in the times of nationalist industrialism, in the era of globalization a true democratic and progressive thought cannot be but anti-nationalist and worldist".
As European citizens and in particular as federalist activists, it comes immediately natural to ask ourselves: what does Iglesias think of the European Union? One does not have to wait for too many pages to find the first quotations, which will be repeated many times in the rest of the book. The author praises the project of European construction and highlights the many results it has attained, but is convinced that European unification essentially has two problems: a democratic deficit (and here he cites with irony Thucydides' sentence against "the tyranny of a minority" placed as an epigraph to the EU Constitutional Treaty), and its limiting itself to the continental scale with, moreover, suicidal temptations of closing itself off from immigration from the poorer world.
Being a Kantian, in addition, he believes that the world federation could be attained starting indeed from Europe (and here he quotes the Italian Federalists' motto "unite Europe to unite the world"), and that Europe's history from Westphalia onwards is, to a large extent, the forerunner of the history of the world: from the forming of the nation-States system to its collapse in the first half of the twentieth century and to the following reconstruction in the period after WWII, passing through the dramatic contradiction between the thrust to a world dimension coming from the techno-economy and the national restrictions operated by the political classes, that meant the end of the continent's world supremacy.
With some optimism the author states that the time for instituting a world Parliament has come, and it is time now to pass from the countless isolated projects in existence (described in great detail in the second chapter) to a real "planetary debate"on the issue. He warns that "unless we create a world Parliament within one generation, we are heading for a catastrophe", but he does not take that for granted.
In conclusion, this book by Fernando Iglesias is innovating for the issues it deals with, rich for the historical data it gives, written in a bright style, and resolute, consistent and constructive in the ideas it proposes. It is worth being translated in English and published on a world scale.

Andrew Strauss, Professor of International Law at Widener University School of Law

We are glad to talk with Andrew Strauss, a world-leading expert on international law and UN matters.
Professor Strauss, since long you have been promoting the idea of a Global Parliamentary Assembly. People are increasingly concerned about problems such as terrorism or global warming. Which answer could a Global Parliamentary Assembly provide to such challenges?
Since a global parliament is a way to begin to bring people into a political process, many feel the unfairness of a few countries holding almost all the power in the global system. The existence of so many alienated people provides a fertile breeding ground for terrorists. If we had a global parliament, we could offer the same deal to those who are inclined to support terrorism that democracies offer to their people. We could say, we will allow you - we even want you - participate, and we will give you the parliamentary means to do so, but your participation must be peaceful.
Now I'm sure al-Qaeda terrorists won't accept that deal, but I believe that if citizen groups had a peaceful global political outlet, terrorists would over time become isolated. As to global warming, the US and Australia have decided not to join the Kyoto Protocol. They can do this because states mostly don't have to agree to follow international laws if they don't want to. Political élites in national capitals are interested in keeping the system voluntary because it maximizes their own prerogatives. Global parliamentary representatives would find that their own influence would expand with that of the global parliament. Even if the parliament was to start as an advisory body, the parliamentarians would over time be likely to champion the idea that acts of parliament should be binding not only on states, but also directly on citizens. If citizens were part of the process, through participating in political campaigns, voting, lobbying, etc. then they would likely come to feel a corresponding loyalty to the parliament and its processes, and the political ground would be laid for them to accept the parliament's decisions as binding. At least this has been the tendency in national parliamentary systems, and it is relevant that the European Parliament started out as a largely advisory body and has slowly gained legislative powers.
You mention the English Parliament, which overthrew the absolute monarchy in the 17th century, as a possible forerunner to a global assembly. Yet the parliament was an expression of well defined social forces, the ones of emerging English capital. Who is going to promote a global assembly?
It is true that, in addition to the aristocracy, the middle class became a support for the English parliament, but to suggest that parliament could only have evolved as it did is to believe that history is rigidly determined which I don't. Much of history happens as a result of unpredictable forces that only seem somehow predestined in retrospect. For example, it was not historically inevitable that Henry the VIII would feel he needed parliament to support his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and break from Rome, and yet this was an event that strengthened parliament a great deal by giving it a claim to authority over religious matters. So today I think we can't be sure what forces or events might be determinative in creating a global parliament. Having said that, I think the forces of global capital, or rather certain elements of global capital, could come to back a global parliament. Now, some people might find it surprising. They see global capital as benefiting from the largely unregulated global economy and as unlikely to want to share power with a global democratic body. But in the US it is often said that President Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism. This means that that by introducing the welfare state during a time - the depression - when capitalism was under significant challenge, Roosevelt provided the accommodation that was necessary for the system to continue. Likewise, today I believe that many enlightened global business leaders could be brought around to the idea that the current system of globalization is not working and that, if it is to be saved, it needs to be established on a more legitimate footing similar to what is found in parliamentary domestic systems. Another important source of support for a global parliament is civil society. Some civil society organizations are resistant to this innovation because finally, having achieved some influence within the international system, they see a parliament as a threat to their turf, so to speak. I think they are wrong, however. Certainly, a global parliament would rearrange the global furniture in ways that could be temporarily uncomfortable for some civil society organizations, but over the long run they would have a more secure place in the global system. After all, civil society organizations have a place in parliamentary systems, supporting candidates and influencing the parliamentary process, in ways they don't have in the international system. They are officially part of the process.
Additionally, I think the citizens of powerless countries and developing countries in particular have a special interest in such a parliament. Clearly the global system is not representing their interests well at the present time.
Finally, I would hope the EU as an entity could become a force for such a body. In many ways the European experiment is the great hope for all of us. After millennia of war, Europe has created a new irenic ethos, and the European Parliament is an important part of it. Because Europeans already know from direct experience the possibilities of what we are talking about, they are in many ways the most likely to help carry the message to the world. Now, you may say that these groups I am pointing to are very different, and many of them have apparently opposing interests, but people who might disagree about substance still have the potential to come together over process. You know, people often think of governance as a zero sum game - for someone to win someone else must lose. But if we can achieve a system of democratic global governance that protects us from environmental calamity, avoids disastrous wars, and makes us all feel secure in our basic rights, we all win.
Many countries are clearly non-democratic. How would you consider their participation in a parliament?
I am inclined to say that any country, even non-democratic countries, can join a treaty to create a global parliament, but that in order for representatives to be credentialed to participate they must be "freely and fairly" elected. I think to allow for any government, democratic or not, to fix elections or simply appoint representatives would undermine the credibility and potential of the parliament.
You wrote also about several different paths towards a Global Parliament. Which is preferable? Why?
The greatest hope of success lies in a global parliament established by independent treaty. Most international organizations are created this way. I'm sceptical that a truly democratic parliament could spring from UN reform process, given that previous reform has been so difficult. Even if many UN members were not ready to agree to an independent treaty, it could still go forward, and once in place, citizens could lobby non-party governments to join. It is important, however, that no matter how the organization starts, it be seen as a way to strengthen the UN. For example, the treaty might provide that the Parliament vote on certain resolutions passed by the General Assembly. A resolution passed bicamerally by both assemblies would, for example, have a great deal of added legitimacy.