Today's Date:

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THE MINISTER – First, thank you for your question. I have had the opportunity to talk to all the Czech Republic leaders, demonstrating the importance of travelling and talking to one another.

Indeed, this four-country summit you describe as a mini-summit has an ambition and is the fruit of a long effort which began in 1991 with the initiatives taken by the Federal German Chancellor and French President. Many milestones have been achieved at the various summits (Saint-Malo, Nice and Laeken), there’s been a Franco-German contribution [to the Convention on the Future of Europe], supported, as you know by Belgium, envisaging the creation of a common security and defence union, and there was the Belgian Prime Minister's initiative expressed in his letter to all our colleagues last July. Hence there is a concern, the realization of the need to do more on security and defence.

The meeting to be held tomorrow is designed to constitute the first stage of a process. And I want you to understand what a process is: it means we need to move forward on a path, fired by an ambition, acting in such a way that this process can, continuously, be fleshed out and expanded. And this is why I said this process has to be ambitious, transparent (and we shall present to all our European colleagues at the Gymnich [informal EU foreign ministers' meeting] at the end of the week everything discussed at this meeting) and open. This means that all European Union members, all the Twenty-Five who wish to take part are welcome.

Once again, the aim is to create a movement, with, as the starting point, an obvious fact: we are living in a world scarred by insecurity which requires us all to face up to our responsibilities. We are paving the way for this, we are discussing together and we're going to make proposals to all our partners. All our partners, informed of these proposals, will be able to join – in a meeting we shall all be able very shortly to arrange together – the process which we're setting in motion. So in the European Union framework, in the spirit of the European Union, using the machinery of the European Union which, following the Maastricht Treaty, provides for the possibility of moving forward through enhanced cooperation, you can clearly see that we are quite simply shouldering our responsibilities. The initiation of this process by four countries doesn't in any way mean that we're seeking to divide Europe. On the contrary, the aim is to move forward.

We're committing ourselves to this path, mobilizing, with the aim of everyone being able to join in – I'm thinking of a country like Britain whom France has been working with for many years, of the Saint-Malo Summit and the Le Touquet Summit at which we took initiatives together – we're anxious to see all States, all those who consider that security and defence must be a genuine priority mobilizing and, once again, this is an open process, and is clearly in the spirit of Europe, since its hallmarks are initiative, openness and solidarity. NATO

Let me point out that in this process, we’re quite obviously doing everything in close consultation and close harmony with the Atlantic Alliance. We're not seeking to build a rival process, but, quite the contrary, to avoid duplication and assert Europe's responsibility. So our aim is precisely to strengthen NATO by acting in such a way that the Europeans are more capable of facing up to their own responsibilities.(...)./.