Grußwort OKR Katrin Hatzinger zur Vorstellung des Friedensgutachtens 2024

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Distinguished speakers,

dear guests,

I am very happy to welcome you to this year´s edition of the presentation of the peace report 2024- the joint yearbook of the four leading German institutes for peace and conflict research on a day that is clearly marked by the results of the US elections which will definitely have an impact on the topic we will discuss today.

Thank you very much for your interest in our event which again we organise together with the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. A big thank you to the FES for the excellent cooperation and to Sidonie especially for being the co-designer of today´s event and the moderator of the discussion.

This year we want to highlight a topic which tends to be sidelined in times of multiple geopolitical crisis and war: dialogue on disarmament and arms control.

After years of underinvestment, almost all national budgets of EU Member States have boosted military spending recently and are planning to increase it even further in the future.

According to media reports 23 out of the 30 NATO member countries are on track to meet the benchmark that requires NATO countries to spend at least two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence capabilities annually. Germany is among the countries that will hit the spending target for the first time, Poland allocated even more than 4% of its GDP to defence. 

Despite the general consensus laid down in several UN treaties and conventions that disarmament is a fundamental requirement for peace, the efforts undertaken by politics have lately been focussed primarily on investing in defence and in boosting defence spending.

The new designated EU Commissioner on defence, Andrius Kubilius, for example is supposed to generate more investment in security and defence and in creating a European defence Union.

The topics of disarmament, arms control fora, mechanisms and treaties have moved out of the spotlight while some states not only ignore but even obstruct efforts to revitalize them.

To illustrate the extent to which rising geopolitical tensions and long-standing divisions among leading states impede tangible progress on disarmament and nonproliferation issues let me refer to one of the rare high-level UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. It was held on 18 March this year and chaired by Japan. During the exchange UN General Secretary Antonio Gueterres urged especially the US and the Russias Federation as the holders of the largest nuclear arsenal to take action on prior disarmament commitments under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), including reductions in the number of nuclear weapons. The answer to that appeal followed promptly. The Russian deputy UN Ambassador declined such proposals as new agreements on nuclear arms control could not be seen in isolation from the general military-political context.

Against this background I am glad that we managed to gather here some very competent speakers on our panel to discuss inter alia in which way the existing mechanism and treaties are still relevant and what could be a way forward to revive and strengthen them keeping in mind the specific roles of the EU and NATO.

Unfortunately, Wendela had to cancel her participation due to an illness so I will step in sharing some insights on the debate within the Protestant Church in Germany around these issues.

Looking forward to our exchange I now hand over to Tobias Mörschel.