STATEMENT BY THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY YVES BERTHELOT ON THE OCCASION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY SESSION OF THE ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE
21 April 1997
The presence of each one of you today is a tribute to the work accomplished
in the past 50 years by the Economic Commission for Europe and a sign of your
commitment to make full use of the capacities of this entity of the United Nations.
I should like to thank you on behalf of the secretariat's entire staff, who are
encouraged by the recognition granted to the institution to which they are so
loyally devoted. I should also like to thank you on behalf of my predecessors,
who over the years have fashioned the instrument which is now at your disposal.
Some are present today: Gerald Hinteregger, Klaus Sahlgren, Janez Stanovnik,
Vladimir Velebit. Others have left us: Sakari Tuomioja and Gunnar Myrdal. All
have followed the path that Gunnar Myrdal marked out: serving the member
States by producing rigorous and bold analyses, and proposing cooperation in
working out technical instruments to bring countries closer together and integrate
them into one whole Europe. Is it necessary to recall that it was a Commission
report on the overproduction of steel in Europe that inspired Jean Monnet,
providing the basis for the Schuman Plan, which led to the European Coal and
Steel Community, embryo of the European Union?
Since 1958 successive issues of the Economic Survey have borne testimony
to this rigour. The ideas it set forth and the analyses it advanced, sometimes
against the prevailing trend, contributed to the development of policies and
stimulated economic debate, vital component of democratic debate. Likewise, the
conventions negotiated within the Commission were the fruit of the dialogue which
it has always maintained, even at times of marked tension, and today they are the
instruments that facilitate good neighbourliness and the integration of the entire
region.
The Commission can take pride in its past. However, in a world of constant
transformation, this past does not constitute a guarantee for the future.
It is precisely to lay the foundation for this future that the Commission felt the
need two years ago to reflect on its strategic orientations, an exercise, the results
of which you will adopt tomorrow as set out in a declaration and a plan of action.
The reforms in the latter can be summed up in three words: focus, flexibility and
efficiency.
First of all, Focus of the Commission's activities on its strong points:
analyses, conventions, norms and guidelines in those areas where the countries
of all the groups that make up the region esteem that international cooperation is
necessary and that the Commission is the best placed institution to manage it.
The accord on the reform is not a compromise achieved by adding the wishes of
some to those of others; it is the result of serious negotiations to agree on the
subjects of common interest.
Flexibility, in the second place, to ensure that the programme of work moves
on smoothly according to needs. Continuous flexibility, as opposed to periodic
ruptures, painful to negotiate, will avoid the necessity of fundamental questioning
for some years: indeed, it is important to harvest the yields of these reforms.
Everyone knows that in any institution there is a fine balance to be struck between
the stability needed to accumulate expertise and ensure continuity of work, and
the change equally necessary to prevent the routine from undermining its
relevance. The established mechanisms and consultation should guarantee this
balance.
Finally, efficiency. In other words, drawing the best out of available
resources. Concentration on core activities and improved working methods as
provided in the Plan of Action allow for this. Many government representatives
privately recognize that there may not be another institution in Europe that
produces so much with so few resources. The secretariat can, indeed, be proud
that with fewer than 200 people it services more than 150 meetings a year, mainly
of qualified experts, and approximately 50 workshops or seminars, while at the
same time producing respected reports in areas as diverse as the environment and
human settlements; transport; statistics; trade, industry and enterprise
development; timber; economic analysis and sustainable energy. New savings
would compromise the quality of work by making it necessary to sacrifice study
and research time. The Commission cannot live off its achievements, it must
continuously invest and innovate.
Mr. Chairman,
Even more important, the reform process has given the Commission two
assets essential for its future: confidence between the secretariat and the member
countries and agreement on its raison d'être.
Confidence between the secretariat and the member countries is essential in
my view and I am grateful to the member countries, under the impetus of
Ambassador Willems and the Bureau, for having closely associated the secretariat
with all the stages of the reform process. I can assure you that I intend to
maintain this confidence, security that the Commission will be capable of timely
engagement in activities necessary to meet new needs. So I shall carry out all the
reforms within the secretariat. And, with my colleagues, I shall facilitate their
implementation by the subsidiary bodies.
Over and above reforms, two questions can be asked: is there a need for the
ECE and, if yes, should it exist within the UN. The multiplication or the eastward
enlargement of regional and subregional institutions, the extension of the scope
of the Bretton Woods institutions in the countries of central and eastern Europe
and Central Asia, themselves justifies the first question. An intensive and
widespread soul-searching within all the regional commissions fuelled by the
current debate on the role of the United Nations in social and economic areas and
the Organization's financial predicament.
By questioning the usefulness of each element of the programme of work and
asking if it would not be dealt with better in another institution, Governments have
tackled the issue head-on and their answer is clear: yes, there are a number of
important issues that they wish to debate within the framework of the Economic
Commission for Europe, because of the acquired credibility based on its
accumulated expertise and the neutrality of a forum where all the countries,
regardless of their size, can express themselves on an equal footing. For many
countries, the ECE is still the only economic forum where they can take part in the
shaping of decisions that will affect their future. And we all comply more willingly
with rules that we have made ourselves than with those that are imposed on us.
History finally defines the Commission's role. The region may no longer be
divided by an iron curtain, but it is, and will long remain, crisscrossed by many
moving borders, which must not be allowed to turn into schisms. The envisaged
expansion of the borders of NATO and the European Union, the borders between
the increasing number of subregional groupings, which cover ancient cultural and
historical realities as well as occasional convergence of interest, borders between
those countries that are ahead in the transition process and those where change
remains all the more fragile as it has not given the population the expected
dividend. Only the OSCE on the political front and the Commission on the
economic front bring together these entities and, in their fields, maintain the
dialogue, build instruments for integration, and give a voice to the weakest and to
those that are isolated. History has shown often enough how an incident in any
part of the region could spread to the whole.
Consequently, one clear conclusion can be drawn: the Commission's raison
d'être is to contribute to the region's cohesion.
But even if ECE has a raison d'être, is its place necessarily within the UN?
The question deserves attention and I associate myself fully with the answer just
given by the Secretary-General. On my side, I will answer by giving the point of
view of the commission. First of all, the activities of ECE are linked to the most
noble of the UN's tasks: to produce what economists refer to as public goods
such as ideas, information and rules, and to put them at the disposal of all member
countries.
Secondly, the regional commissions benefit from their membership of the UN
which is a guarantee of neutrality. When the south-east European countries
recently expressed the wish that ECE should support the so-called SECI initiative,
it was, without doubt, because of the technical instruments that the secretariat
could supply, but it was above all because a UN body would be neutral and would
contribute without ulterior motives to their integration into Europe.
Thirdly, the Commission has developed many instruments for cooperation in
the areas of transport, trade and environment which were adopted by
neighbouring countries and even the entire international community. Such a
pragmatic and simple sharing of the achievements of one region by countries of
other regions is possible because the regional commissions are part of the UN.
I have, Mr Chairman, expressed my faith in the Economic Commission for
Europe within the UN. I know that it is shared by the entire secretariat and by the
member countries which worked out the reforms. May I, to conclude, express the
wish that after having been a place for dialogue between antagonistic countries,
then a forum where market-economy countries shared their experience with those
that were converting to this system, the Commission should now become a place
where all the countries of the region, large and small, rich and poor, avoid any
master-student, strong-weak, donor-recipient behaviour to build together a viable
Europe, able to play a role in the world.