Address

Mr Secretary General, Distinguished Colleagues,

NATO's cooperation with Partner countries has proved to be a successful strategic choice for security and stability consolidation in the Euro-Atlantic area.

This achievement goes back a long way. The Declaration on Peace and Cooperation in Europe, adopted by the NATO Summit held in Rome in November 1991, at a time when the Alliance was opening up to dialogue with Central and Eastern European countries, already stated that "the challenges we will face in this new Europe cannot be comprehensively addressed by one institution alone, but only in a framework of interlocking institutions tying together the countries of Europe and North America".

In this vision, NATO, the United Nations, the OSCE and the European Union were all components which, far from excluding one another, had to make their own contribution to defining a new cooperative approach to security. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council is one of the most advanced expressions of this open and dynamic thinking.

The results achieved together in the course of recent years, often in greatly differing situations, have enabled us to confirm that it is possible, on the basis of an inclusive concept of security, to establish a climate of trust and cooperation to help bring down old barriers, fill dangerous voids and establish stabilisation processes.

The NATO-Russia Summit which we will be hosting in Rome in a couple of weeks is perhaps the most striking expression of this new climate, the clearest message to the world that the Euro-Atlantic area as a whole is finding a new, more stable profile, characterised by common values and interests.
The multi-faceted cooperation framework of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council "at 46" is an extension of, and a complement to this structure.
The challenge for our Partnership is to give rise to an overall unity of purpose, while also bringing together, around this table, countries which have made different security choices.

We must work, in accordance with the guidelines found in the 1997 Basic Document, towards greater flexibility in our cooperation, with a more acute awareness of the opportunities for common efforts on a regional or functional basis. Italy hopes above all that particular attention will be given to the Balkan area, notably through the gradual integration in the Partnership of countries which do not yet participate in it . We aIso hope to see greater flexibility in the ,operational mechanisms, in order to align them more closely with the practical requirements of partners, for instance on the so-called horizontal issues such as the fight against terrorism or border control.

Finally, I would like to point out the need for a tangible connection in terms of policies and programmes between the NATO's Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and its Mediterranean Dialogue. The Mediterranean Sea and the territories facing each other on either shore form an integral part of the geo-strategic dimension and of the security interests of the Euro-Atlantic area as a whole. The experience of the PfP could be of major significance in the development of the Mediterranean Dialogue towards a new partnership dimension. Besides, it would make little sense to profess the indivisibility of our collective security while believing we can ignore the Mediterranean dimension.