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The Nordic-Baltic 8 is not the G8. The five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden together with their three Baltic neighbours, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all fall within the UN definition of a smaller state (fewer than 10 million inhabitants).

At the same time, some of these states are both major actors in the UN and large contributors to UN programmes in absolute and per capita terms, and have provided thousands of men and women for UN peacekeeping missions over the years. They have also been a driving force behind earlier UN reform efforts.

It should not be forgotten that it is to a large extent smaller states, through the General Assembly of the United Nations, where each member state has one vote, which will have a decisive voice in shaping the United Nations for the coming years.

During 2005 we will have the opportunity to put the United Nations, and thereby our common security, on the right course. The 2005 UN Summit, coming five years after the adoption of the UN Millennium Declaration, should initiate a period of implementation of the changes necessary to ensure that new and old threats to our common security can be met effectively by collective action. The alternative is a weaker world body, and a more unpredictable and less secure world for us all.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s High-Level Panel On Threats, Challenges and Change has just delivered its proposals. They will give UN member states a comprehensive basis for making the right decisions on UN reform. We appreciate that meaningful change will take time to implement. But key decisons for the future can and must be taken rapidly to initiate the process.

We are faced with an array of threats: Interstate conflict and rivalry; civil wars, state collapse and genocide; poverty, environmental degradation and disease; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; terrorism; and the colossal challenge of transnational organized crime. The threats are clear and present, they are growing, and they are much too serious and complex for any nation to face alone.

We need to focus our discussions effectively. Decisions must include simultaneous action in six key areas if we are to succeed:

1) The Security Council should be made more representative and more legitimate without compromising its effectiveness. But we cannot allow the issue of expansion of the Security Council to dominate and even deadlock much-needed, wide-ranging reform. The Security Council will not be a more legitimate body unless smaller nations, too, have a reasonable opportunity to take part.

2) Development must be the first line of defense. We must provide the resources that are needed to bring nations and people out of poverty. The threats of hunger and poverty, environmental degradation, lack of education and access to health services are real. That is why it is imperative that at the 2005 Summit we also take stock and redouble our determination and efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals.

3) There is an urgent need to improve our assistance to countries in transition from war to peace. We must strengthen our collective ability to prevent violent conflict, to negotiate effective peace agreements, and to provide comprehensive assistance to sustainable peace. Nothing is more dangerous to international security than a failed state. Such states are not only centres of insecurity and human misery. They may also spark conflict, crime and terrorism elsewhere. The international community must agree on a more consistent and coherent approach to peace-building, with a focus on building key institutions, functions and capacities of a well-functioning state.

4) The United Nations must not again fail to protect innocent civilians. When the responsibilities of a state towards its people are manifestly ignored, the international community cannot remain inactive. However, we need to build greater consensus around the need for such collective action. We need to ensure early diplomatic responses in order to prevent the need for military intervention.

5) The UN Charter fully empowers the Security Council to address the wide range of security threats with which states are faced. However, we need to make the Security Council work better, more decisively and more pro-actively when needed.

6) We need to strengthen international cooperation based on adherence to and, if necessary, development of new legally binding commitments to prevent the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, to combat terrorism, and to fight organized crime.

The United Nations was established in 1945 on the ruins of a failed global order and its terrible consequences. Then, as now, security was at the top of the list. Then, as now, the solution was to seek common approaches to common problems. There is no alternative to a better organized and strengthened United Nations in all of the above areas if we are to meet the challenges we face.

The 2005 UN Summit, and the comprehensive report from the High-Level Panel provide us with the opportunity and tools to take decisive action. As foreign ministers we are determined to participate constructively and decisively in making good use of this opportunity. We urge colleagues in other member states to take the same approach. It is our shared responsibility.

In announcing the establishment of the High Level Panel a year ago, Kofi Annan famously said that we have come to a fork in the road. The analogy is reminiscent of Waiting for Godot by the great Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. In the play two men sit under a tree by the road discussing interminably what they should do. The play ends with them declaring boldly “Let’s go!”. The stage direction, however, states simply “They do not move”. Let us make sure that our General Assembly next year does not, in the matter of UN reform, amount to a similar tragicomedy on paralysis of action.

Kristiina Ojuland,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia

Per Stig Møller,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark

Erkki Tuomioja,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland

Davíð Oddsson,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iceland

Artis Pabriks,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia

Antanas Valionis,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania

Jan Petersen,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway

Laila Freivalds,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden