Transcript
MINISTER FRATTINI: Up until now we've always thought that multilateralism from a normative step point strictly depended upon institutions. This was based on belief that only formal institutions could produce norms. What was built since after the Second World War is in fact a top-down multilateralism. We did the same in Europe through the European process. . .
Therefore, as a result of such institutionalist approach, we have been spending a lot of time over the last two decades discussing on how better to reform our global institutions. The debate has [ranged] from the enlargement of UN Security Council to the enlargement of G8 and, more recently, the idea of a League of Democracies. None of these attempts for a grand reform of global institutions seem to be going anywhere from a variety of reasons, which I'm not going to discuss now. But the problem is, however, that the longer we are paralyzed with the debate over the reform of global institutions, the longer we are condemned to live under a normative disorder and a governance gap that will reduce people's faith in multilateralism and will encourage the resurgence of nationalism and negative competition among the states.
The question I would like to pose therefore is can we fill the current governance gap and save multilateralism by using a new approach, namely a bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down one, putting us out, putting aside, without abandoning the time-consuming discussion on a grand reform or global institution. Could we not instead focus first on the attempt to pragmatically create from below and for each of the challenging areas I've described a web of norms and commitments that an ever broader community of responsible powers would subscribe to and commit to share? This is the question, targeting for those areas I've mentioned -- nonproliferation, trade, development, energy, environment, and building up in each of these areas common principles, common codes of behavior, common responsibilities shared by the major stakeholders of international system. Pragmatically promoting such global normatives should maybe become our priority. It would help to consolidate this new community of responsible powers, and this in turn would facilitate at a later stage the necessary and, I would say, inevitable reform, also of the formal institutions.
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