Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a privilege to join you and others around this table in welcoming to this special Permanent Council the distinguished Secretary General of the Council of the European Union and EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana.

Mr. Solana, thank you for your thoughtful remarks, which are very harmonious with what I will be saying here at this Permanent Council. The topic you are addressing today – enhancing cooperation between the OSCE and the European Union – is profoundly important, both to the United States, and to this Organization. It is clear that the OSCE and the EU share a broad range of common goals, objectives, and hopes. Both are committed to the prevention of conflict throughout Europe, the rehabilitation and stabilization of former conflict areas, the fight against terrorism, and the further protection and strengthening of democratic values, democratic processes, fundamental freedoms, and inalienable human rights throughout our societies.

The OSCE and the EU should be, and are becoming, natural allies and partners in this common purpose. We welcome that, and hope to see our cooperation even further enhanced.

Mr. Solana, we agree that OSCE and EU cooperation in Southeast Europe has been a formative experience. Recently in Helsinborg, Sweden and then in Elsinore, Denmark, you suggested that the EU’s Balkan experience taught several important lessons: That without intensive diplomatic engagement, the momentum for political progress can be lost; That without an international presence, societies cannot recover from conflict; and that without the ability to deploy conflict prevention expertise quickly, crises can rapidly escalate to war.

In Macedonia, we learned these lessons well. Your personal efforts last year, along with those of the EU’s extremely effective Special Representative, Mr. LeRoy, as well as of the Romanian and Portuguese Chairs, of Craig Jenness and Max van der Stoel, and of NATO’s and the United States’ own envoys, helped the Macedonian authorities to end the crisis and return Macedonia to the path of Euro-Atlantic integration.

This cooperation now has seen Macedonia through critical elections. The key lesson I draw is that to be successful, we must share common goals with international partners and the host state, and we need to coordinate closely on common approaches, through effective, frequent communication between Vienna and Brussels as well as on the ground.

I hope we can continue to learn from our Macedonia experience as we look ahead to other areas that would benefit from close OSCE-EU cooperation. Opening an OSCE Liaison Office in Brussels within current budget modalities would be an important step towards ensuring such effective, frequent contact, and we hope this Council will pursue that idea.

As you have noted, the EU’s Stabilization and Association Process (SAP) is one of the most effective tools at preventing conflict and facilitating necessary reforms. We believe there is tremendous complementarity between the SAP’s goals and the ongoing work of OSCE Missions in southeast Europe, as both seek to encourage and assist host governments on issues such as property restitution, refugee returns, anti-corruption and anti-trafficking, independent media, and ethnic reconciliation.

We would thus welcome more explicit support from Brussels for the idea that premature closure of OSCE field missions, before their work has been effectively completed, would hinder rather than help host states on the path towards integration. Finally, on the Balkans, we welcome the EU’s lead efforts, under your personal direction, to resolve the complicated constitutional status of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as to take over from the UN the lead role in police monitoring in Bosnia. In both cases, the OSCE will work with the EU in any way it can to ensure those efforts are successful.

Mr. Solana, looking ahead to where we should enhance future OSCE-EU cooperation, I would like to raise two specific areas.

In Belarus, the OSCE faces a difficult challenge as we try to resolve the questions over the future activities of our Assistance and Monitoring Group. Overwhelming agreement within the OSCE exists on the important contribution the AMG can and should make to the development of democratic institutions in Belarus and ending Belarus' deepening self-isolation within the international community.

Yet the Belarusian regime has turned its back on the good faith of this organization and prevented a resolution. Its record on human rights continues to decline. It is clear that the OSCE and the EU share the same hope for Belarus, and we appreciate the consistent support EU member countries have already provided on behalf of the OSCE AMG. I believe that more coordinated, collective efforts by the OSCE and EU to work constructively with Belarus to secure the return of the AMG would offer the best hope to Belarus of future democratic development, reform and an end to its self-imposed isolation.

In Central Asia and the Caucasus, especially following September 11, it is ever more important to strengthen our efforts to enhance security and stability, and promote democracy and prosperity. The OSCE is already present throughout the region, with field centers dedicated to assisting the host states in a range of important areas, including addressing security concerns, broadening political participation, strengthening human rights and rule of law, and facilitating economic reform. I would note here, Mr. Solana, that I have worked actively to try to ensure that the United States’ own extensive bilateral efforts in the region complement the OSCE’s activities I urge the EU work with us to ensure a similar complementarity.

We welcome the recent announcement that the EU is doubling its assistance to Central Asia to around 50 million Euros a year. But we believe it is important that the EU become even more engaged in the Caucasus and Central Asia. We would welcome, for example, concrete ideas on ways to advance democracy and human rights in the region.

We also believe that EU contributions to support initiatives for training police and border control personnel from Central Asia and the Caucasus and for strengthening judicial reform, in coordination with OSCE and U.S. efforts, could significantly enhance the region's ability to combat terrorism, weapons proliferation, and drug trafficking. Establishing effective rule of law, including border controls, is one area critical to all of our security objectives in the region - but some in the region lack rule of law infrastructure and expertise. Coordination of our efforts to avoid duplication and promote complementary objectives will be key to our successful assistance in this area.

Other areas where we believe the EU can play a positive role in Central Asia and the Caucasus, in coordination with the OSCE, include: Help in coordinating international advice and assistance on illegal immigration and trafficking in persons; assistance for election reform and monitoring; and cooperative water/irrigation projects.

In addition to new assistance programs, diplomatic initiatives, including high-level visits, are critical. We believe combined EU-U.S. and EU-OSCE visits to the region - as part of a unified, comprehensive assistance effort -- would be important to discuss what programs our Central Asian partners feel are in their interests.