UN 'definitely is not delivering the way it should,' says EU foreign policy chief

ISTANBUL

EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Monday said the UN is "not delivering the way it should" and reiterated the need to develop an international law with countries seeking rules-based order.

"As we heard, the United Nations definitely is not delivering the way it should," Kallas said as she was speaking at the Oslo Security Conference.

She acknowledged that there are many countries that want a rules-based order, underlining that the international order protects them.

"We are in this situation where we have to really develop this international law further with those countries who want a rules-based order," Kallas said.

Stressing that the UN Charter principles are "very good," she noted that the accountability part is "lacking."

'Having dependencies is making you vulnerable'

Kallas also highlighted the need for Europe to build up its own defenses, adding that having dependencies makes the bloc "vulnerable."

"We have learned the hard way that (...) having dependencies is making you vulnerable," she said.

Further referring to EU defense ministers “always” citing national budgets and decisions, Kallas argued that if the bloc strengthens its defense collectively, it can “actually cover a bigger area.”

In the meantime, Kallas also noted that people saying they need a European army "haven't really thought this through practically."

"You know that you have one army, you have one defense budget, so if you are already part of NATO, and then you can't create a separate army besides the army that you already have. Because in terms of crisis, what is most important is the chain of command. Who gives orders to whom?" she explained.

Kallas added that having two such separate European and NATO armies would be “extremely dangerous.”

"That's why I say we have to strengthen European defense, which is also part of NATO. It is really complementary to NATO. Let's not throw NATO out of the window," she said.

Within the context of NATO's standardization of the forces, Kallas also said that the EU has one request from NATO to "share those standards and information," underlining that they can't help the member states "to develop those capabilities or do them together" if they don't know everything that they need to know.

"All the members need to agree on sharing some of the information that is problematic for some members. If you think about Türkiye and we think about some European Union members, we need to overcome these obstacles, because we really need to share these things, so we can help both organizations (EU-NATO)," she added.