Discussion Session with Carl Bildt

When you invite a Minister of Foreign Affairs to talk to you about the Eastern Partnership (EP), and in the course of the meeting he answers additional questions about the Balkans, disarmament, the Georgia conflict, the Treaty of Lisbon and the political situation in Ukraine in a knowledgeable and indeed eloquent manner, then you are obviously talking to Carl Bildt, one of Europe’s most prestigious foreign policy experts. He clearly had things to say about many topics which were more sensible than the views held by many of his fellow foreign ministers. Bildt began by sketching in the origins of and the difficulties associated with the EP. The initiative, which he helped to get off the ground, includes states which hope to join the EU, and states which cannot attain this goal in the foreseeable future. This was why a case-by-case approach was so important. The remarks about the European Neighbourhood Policy prompted the participants to discuss the issue of EU enlargement. Bildt answered questions about the future of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the Butmir process by pointing among other things to the importance of achieving a transatlantic consensus and the difficult role of the OHR. The Munich Young Leaders also discussed the role of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe with Sweden’s chief diplomat. Bildt made no bones about the fact that they were no longer needed, since they made no sense in military terms and were politically counter-productive. With regard to the repercussions of the Georgia conflict in 2008, the foreign minister drew a distinction between the situation in Abkhazia and the much more difficult one in South Ossetia, which even Russia considered to be a disgrace. He pointed out that the EU supported territorial integrity in the South Caucasus just as much as it did in the North Caucasus.

This report was written by Munich Young Leader Matthias Lüttenberg, Federal Foreign Office, Berlin.

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