Mr. Michael Howard:

I will take those two issues separately if I may. The UN is no more and no less than the member states. If the member states agree to do something, it gets done. One of the factors that constrains the UN in operation is the Security Council because permanent members have a veto. That is outside of our control but that is the situation.

The second big constraint on the UN is resources. If the United Nations mounts a blue hat operation, the financial cost of it falls on the UN, and its capacity to fund and resource the operations is limited. Therefore, it asks organisations such as the EU and NATO to come in, but always under a UN mandate so the political legitimacy of the missions derives from the United Nations. The difference is that regional organisations such as the EU or NATO pay for the operation and relieve the UN of the financial burden, plus they might bring a depth of capacity and technical ability that the UN would not perhaps get voluntarily.

I welcome the opportunity to bring clarity to the position with NATO. Basically, the relationship we have with NATO is stable. It has not changed. We are a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace. Since the late 1990s, when the change in peacekeeping took place, and since the UN asked organisations such as NATO to go peacekeeping, we have participated in NATO-led peacekeeping operations, as do all of the other neutral countries. It is a general policy on peacekeeping that even when an organisation such as NATO or the European Union mounts an operation, it is open to third countries if they wish to join in because it is basically a UN operation. However, if one is operating at such a high technical level, one cannot simply show up in the mission area and hope one will be able to operate with other high-tech forces in a seamless way. For that reason, NATO has developed a plethora of standards and when one goes with NATO – to use what might be a frivolous illustration, one cannot show up with two-pin plugs if everyone else has three-pin sockets. There are NATO standards for every type of equipment, for communications and procedures of every kind so that one can operate seamlessly together. The way in which countries such as Ireland that are not members of NATO get access to the standards is through Partnership for Peace. That is its purpose. We have a partnership programme and its focus is to ensure we are interoperable with NATO on peacekeeping missions. That is its purpose and goal.

NATO welcomes the participation of this country because we have such a strong reputation in peacekeeping. Our presence on missions underlines the fact that it is basically a UN peacekeeping operation being performed by NATO and not a NATO mission. Our dialogue with NATO takes place on the basis that we are a partner but not a member. We have no agenda to change the nature of our participation with it. I acknowledge that we have got tremendous technical support and assistance from NATO in achieving full interoperability for peacekeeping missions. I am anxious to correct any belief people have that our relationship with NATO is one that is in some sort of fundamental transit. Both sides fully understand and respect the fact that we are not a member and we are not an applicant but we co-operate with peacekeeping, and in between missions, we do the training and follow the standards that are necessary to go on peace support operations when they arise.