Albanian Council on Foreign Relations
Foreign Policy Forum

Australia and Albania in a Changing World

H.E. Mr Jeremy Newman

Australian Ambassador to Albania
Wednesday 2 March 2011

 

 

Thank you very much Ms Jusufaj, Executive Director, and Ambassador Nesho, President of the Albanian Council on Foreign Relations.

Distinguished guests, dear friends.

I am absolutely delighted to be here at the Albanian Council on Foreign Relations.  It is an honour to have this opportunity to address this foreign policy forum before such an illustrious audience. 

Over the past few years contact between Albanian and Australian Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers has greatly increased.  Those meetings reflect our shared concerns about international security.

Just a few weeks ago, the deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, Mr Haxhinasto, delivered the annual appraisal of the foreign ministry.  What struck me was the number of common reference points: NATO, of which we are a contact country; Afghanistan, where Australia has one of the larger troop presences; the OSCE, of which we have recently become an Asian partner for cooperation.  And we follow closely Albania’s EU trajectory, because Australia is deepening and intensifying its own relationship with the EU.

Today, I want to do a number of things.  First, to introduce Australia.  Then, I want to talk about the significant changes reshaping the global situation and how Australia is responding to such change.  And I want to speak about Australia’s perspective on Europe against this background of change.

So first a brief introduction to Australia.

We are the only nation that occupies an entire continent:  Australia is in fact the sixth largest country in the world and twice the size of the entire European Union.  If you fly from Sydney to Perth it is the same distance as flying from Paris to Damascus. But it is important to remember that we have a population of only 22 million people.  We may look huge on the map, but in numbers we are in fact a medium-sized country.

We are a relatively young nation.  Our population is growing.  At the end of the Second World War we had a population of 7 million.  By 2050, we estimate that we will have a population of 35 million.  Much of our population growth is driven by migration.  Over the past 60 years we have received over 6 million migrants and ¾ of a million refugees.  We have an Albanian community which can trace itself back to the 19th century.  More recently we took many refugees from Kosova. Today, nearly one quarter of our population was born elsewhere.

At any one time, 1 million Australians are travelling outside Australia.  Each year we receive over 5 and a half million visitors.  That means we are both a dynamic and an outward looking country.  We have to be – our international engagement is vital to our economic prosperity and security.

Despite our relatively small population, we have the 14th biggest economy in the world.  We are the 4th largest economy in Asia.  Of all the developed economies, Australia has been the only one to maintain growth during the global financial crisis.  We have a very open and competitive economy.  This openness, which has made Australia so resilient, is a legacy of deep economic reform undertaken by governments committed to economic liberalization from the 1980s onwards.

That is my starting point on the changing world and the challenges it poses for foreign policy.  Australia was fortunate because our politicians anticipated the tide of globalization.  They abolished tariffs, deregulated the market, floated the currency and opened the economy to the world.  Without such steps, Australia would have become an isolated backwater.

Globalization has been one of the biggest drivers of change in the international order.  It is a central element in the change in over recent decades in which global economic and political power have been inexorably shifting from West to East.

We live now at a time one of Australia’s leading strategic thinkers likes to call the end of the Vasco da Gama era: the end of the 500 year period when the west dominated Asia. It has become a cliché to say that the 21st century is the Asian century.   But like many clichés, it is a phrase that is grounded in truth.

The global financial crisis has further accelerated the shift in global economic weight.  But I think it is important to see what is happening as a change in relativities, not a zero sum game in which for every winner there must be a loser.  Europe and the United States will remain major global players.  But they, and Australia too of course, now have to adjust to a much more complex multipolar world

Such a period of change challenges many assumptions about global security at many levels.  The journey ahead in international relations looks turbulent.  It is far more uncertain than the relative stability of a bipolar world or the brief unipolar moment at the end of the cold war.

In determining its approach to foreign policy in such a world, the Australian government set out three broad pillars of foreign policy

• a reinvigorated commitment to multilateralism, particularly through the UN system
• deepening engagement with our Asia-Pacific partners
• and a reaffirmation of our long-standing alliance with the United States.

A commitment to an effective multilateral system is a bedrock of Australian policy.  Such a system can never be perfect.  But unless there is some way to create international norms, and to give all countries, whatever their size, a role in creating and maintaining international order, we cannot have real security.  Since 1945, Australian foreign policy has been informed by the underlying principles and purposes of the United Nations: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, and to achieve global cooperation. Australia regards the United Nations as an essential forum through which to influence world affairs, promote a stable international framework, defend Australia’s security and sovereignty, pursue trade and economic interests and promote Australian values. Australia has made important contributions to UN activity for more than 60 years, including in the areas of peace and security, human rights, development assistance and social, economic and environmental affairs.
A former foreign minister has put Australia’s position very clearly, noting that ‘Every difficult international problem that we see, whether it is global economic difficulties, whether it is climate change, whether it is international terrorism or transnational crime, whether it is responding to pandemics, or disaster relief, whether it is progressing disarmament, and the ultimate abolition of nuclear weapons, all of these things can only be effected by working with other countries, through the international institutions, whether it’s the United Nations, whether it’s the World Trade Organization, or through the regional institutions.’
Australia participated in the first peacekeeping operation under UN auspices in 1947—the UN Consular Commission to Indonesia. Since then, Australia has provided more than 65,000 personnel to more than 50 UN and other multilateral peacekeeping and peace monitoring operations, including in Korea, the Middle East and Cambodia.

Australia has been a member of the UN Security Council on four occasions: 1946–47, 1956–57, 1973–74 and 1985–86.   We are a candidate again for membership for the 2013-14 period.   We believe that our record shows that we can use that position to make tangible differences for the small and medium countries of the world.

We believe that the multilateral system must evolve to reflect changes in the world.  In that context, Australia was one of the leading countries to transform the G20 group into a leaders’ meeting capable of coordinating the world’s response to the global financial crisis.  The G20, by including nations such as Brazil, China, Turkey, Indonesia and India, was better able to reflect the significant changes in the world economy over the past twenty years.

If the international structures set up after the 2nd World War do not adapt to the changing global system, it will be much harder to accommodate the aspirations of emerging powers within a rules-based framework.  If these aspirations are not accommodated, the world will become increasingly unstable.  That is one reason we believe that there is a strong case to increase the number of permanent members of the UN Security Council.  Expanding the Council’s membership would appropriately reflect the fundamental geo-political changes since it was founded.

As I have mentioned, a key driver of those changes has been the growing influence of Asia-Pacific economies on the future of the world economy.

Australia is located in the middle of the Asia-Pacific region.  It is both a dynamic and a volatile region of the world.  It contains three of the world’s most dangerous strategic flashpoints: the Taiwan straits, the Korean Peninsula and Kashmir, as well as traditional rivalries between the great powers of the region.

And I should point out that in geopolitical terms, Asia is quite unlike Europe. There is no security architecture such as NATO provides, nor a political and economic group such as the European Union.  So as our former foreign minister, Mr Smith, put it a few years ago ‘As the world moves to our region, it maximises the reason for us not just to continue our engagement with the Asia-Pacific, but to enhance it, and look to the structures through which that regional engagement occurs’.

Australia has traditionally worked hard to develop regional structures.  We were a founder of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum, a group which accounts for approximately 41% of the world's population, approximately 55% of world GDP and half of world trade, and those figures are rising.  We play an active role in the East Asia summit and the ASEAN regional forum to promote cooperation and policies that will provide stability and prosperity.

But we recognise too that in a region with unresolved conflicts and strategic uncertainties we need to take international security very seriously.

Australia’s defence spending is the 11th largest in the world.  While our armed forces are heavily focused on the defence of Australia and contributing to a stable environment in the Asia-Pacific, we also have a strong sense as a nation of our obligations to contribute to broader global security.  That is reflected in what I have said about our contribution to UN peacekeeping.  It is also reflected in our strong commitment to Afghanistan where we are the largest non-NATO force contributor.  And we enormously appreciate Albania’s contribution there.

It is important that states are contributors to global security not just takers.
Australia sees the United States as the major contributor to global security.  We have a long-standing alliance with the United States.  This alliance has had consistent support from both sides of Australian politics and in public opinion.  The United States is a nation that has shown itself to be indispensable to regional security in the Asia-Pacific. It is the one nation that can provide balance between rival powers: and it is a state with which we share many values.
As our foreign minister put it two years ago: ‘The United States’ role has continued to provide the stability that allows nations in our region to focus on their pursuit of economic prosperity. An ongoing presence in, and active engagement by the United States in the Asia Pacific, is essential into the future for both security and prosperity purposes’.  And I think it important to note that that is a view held by many of the nations of the Asia-Pacific.
We have also seen the key role the United States has played in what is called the Euro-Atlantic region as the ultimate guarantor of security.  The US vision of a Europe whole and free is one of the pillars of Albania’s success story.
As I noted earlier, the clear trend for some time has been towards a multipolar world. Some people may think such a world sounds reassuring.  There won’t be one hyperpower, but many players on the block. Some powers will rightly expect to have more influence in global affairs. And that won’t be a bad thing. But the important point to repeat is that bipolar and unipolar systems are inherently more stable than multipolar ones and that is particularly the case during a period of transition before new rules of the game are widely accepted between the new power centres.   This is a central feature of the changing world Albania and Australia face.

We see Europe as a key player in this world.  Europe has considerable intellectual, material and strategic resources to contribute to global order and prosperity.  The European Union itself is one of the most remarkable projects in history.  It has achieved an extraordinary pooling of sovereignty between nations.  It has provided the vehicle to heal the divisions of the 2nd world war, and the divisions of the cold war.  The EU may have problems, but its achievements far outweigh them.

One of Europe’s problems has been a tendency to inwardness.  The sheer complexity of decision making makes it hard to project a coherent, proactive diplomacy.  And one of the areas where Australia can help is in cooperating with Europe in developing comprehensive engagement with the Asia-Pacific, a region as I noted that is driving change in the world.

The European Commission’s website states clearly that ‘getting relations with this diverse and dynamic region is one of the major challenges facing Europe’.  Australia’s Partnership Framework Agreement with the EU sets out many practical ways to do just that.  At present, we are working to upgrade the Agreement to a Treaty.  And we have welcomed the Lisbon Treaty and the establishment of European External Action Service.  These developments will help bring Europe’s strengths to bear with the weight they deserve in the emerging multipolar world.

Albania is naturally focused on its aspirations for EU membership and on its immediate neighbourhood.  And I might add that Australia sees Albania as integral to the achievement of lasting stability in the western Balkans.  But we also see in Albania a country with historical ties with Asia that leave it well placed to contribute to an outward looking Europe.  Albania is also a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference which brings a valuable additional dimension to its foreign policy.  Moreover, I think too that because Albania has painful first hand experience of the consequences of breakdown in global stability, it has a very clear-headed understanding that disengagement from the world is not an option.

It is not an option because one characteristic of change in the world is the concept of interdependence.  International affairs are no longer just a subject for specialists:  more and more they affect the everyday life of ordinary people.  And one implication of that is an increased urgency for international cooperation to address key issues that affect the lives of our citizens.  Our current foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, put the argument in a speech a few years ago that ‘foreign policy, foreign economic policy and national security policy must increasingly be seen as the natural expression of the nation’s domestic policy interests’.

So I approach the end of this speech by noting that change in the world is driving convergence: convergence between domestic and foreign policy, and convergence between countries and regions that are far apart.

Australia is a very fortunate country.  But we know that to secure a peaceful, prosperous future for our citizens it is not sufficient for us just to be an active regional player.  We know that we also have to act globally as a good international citizen.

Convergence means that countries as far apart as Albania and Australia have greater need for contact bilaterally and in multilateral fora.  As I come to the end of my time as Australia’s ambassador to Albania, I have every confidence that our governments will continue to work together to strengthen the international security and stability that are fundamental to the welfare of both our peoples.