Javier Solana

Javier Solana Madariaga (born July 14, 1942 in Madrid, Spain) is the High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Secretary-General of both the European Union (EU) and the Western European Union (WEU). He was a physicist who became a politician, before serving as NATO Secretary General 1995-99. He has been designated EU Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2006.

Family history

Solana comes from a well known Spanish family and is the grandson of famous Spanish League of Nations disarmament chief, diplomat, writer and European integrationist Salvador de Madariaga and Scottish scholar and economic historian Constance de Madariaga, and the son of writer Nieves de Madariaga, who worked for 20 years in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). His older brother Luis was imprisoned for his political activities opposing the dictatorship of Franco's.

Student and Physicist

In 1963 as a student he was sanctioned by the authorities for having organised an opposition forum at the Complutense University called The Week of University Renovation. He clandestinely joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in 1964, which had been an illegal party under Franco since 1939. In the same year he graduated in chemistry. He spent a year furthering his studies in the United Kingdom until in 1965 he went to the United States of America for six years, studying at various universities on a Fulbright Scholarship. He taught physics for a time at the University of Chicago, and joined in the protests against the Vietnam War. He received his doctorate in physics in 1968 from the University of Virginia, where he taught and researched until 1971. Returning to Spain he became a lecturer in solid-state physics at the Complutense University, becoming a professor 2 years later. During these years he published more than 30 articles.

Spanish politics

On returning to Spain in 1971 Solana joined the Denocratic Co-ordination of Madrid as the PSOE representative. In 1976 he was elected PSOE's Secretary in its first national congress inside Spain since the civill war, remaining in the post for five years. He quickly became a leading PSOE member, and was a close personal friend of their leader Felipe González. He became a representative of a teacher's union in the Complutense University, and in this role won a parliamentary seat for PSOE on June 15 1977. He was designated secretary of PSOE's Federal Executive Commission, and in both 1976 and 77 he represented them at an international socialist congress held in France.

On October 28 1982 PSOE won a historic victory with 202 seats. On December 3, along with the other members of González' cabinet, Solana was sworn in as Minister for Culture. On 5 July 1985 he was also made the Official Spokesman for the Government until 1988. On July 19 he left the Culture department to become Education Minister.

He was made Minister for Foreign Affairs on July 22 1992, the day before the opening of the II Ibero-American conference of heads of state in Madrid, replacing the terminally ill Francisco Fernández Ordóñez. On November 27-28 1995, with Spain heading the presidencies of both the EU and the WEU, Solana convened and chaired the Barcelona Conference. A treaty was achieved between the 27 nations in attendance with Solana gaining credit for what he called a process to foster cultural and economic unity in the Mediterranean region.

It was during these 13 years as a cabinet minister that Solana's reputation as a discreet and diplomatic politician grew. By going to the foreign Ministry in the later years of González administration he avoided the political scandals of corruption, and of the dirty war allegedly being fought against ETA, that characterised it's last years.

NATO

Four months before the end of the PSOE era, and amid rumours in the Spanish press that Solana would run for the premiership in those elections, he became new Secretary General of NATO on December 5, replacing Willy Claes who had been forced to resign. He was the last Minister to leave González' original cabinet.

His appointment created controversy as he had been an opponent of NATO in his past. He had written a pamphlet called 50 Reasons to say no to NATO, and had been on a US subversives list. In October 1982, when PSOE came to power the party changed their previous anti-NATO attitude into a pro-NATO, pro-USA stance. In March 1986 Spain held a referendum on whether to join NATO, with the government and Solana successfully campaigning in favour. When criticised about his anti NATO past Solana argued that he was happy to be it's representative as it had become dissassociated from it's cold war origins.

Solana immediately had to take command of the NATO peace mission called Operation Joint Endeavour that consisted of a multinational Implementation Force (IFOR) of 60,000 soldiers which took over from a United Nations mission on December 20. This came about through the Dayton agreement, after NATO had bombed selected targets in Bosnia and Herzegovina the previous August and September. In December 1996 the Implementation Force was replaced by a 32,000 strong Stabilisation Force (SFOR) under first Joint Guard and then (in June 1998) under Joint Forge.

Under Solana's guidance, and in response to a new post cold war era, NATO reorganised it's political and military structure and changed it's basic strategies. He gained the reputation of being a very capable, successful Secretary General who was capable of negotiating between the differing needs both of the members of NATO and those with whom they were negotiating. In December 1995 France returned to the military structure of NATO, while in November 1996 Spain joined it. On May 29 1997, in Sintra in Portugal an agreement was reached with Russia, after long and complex negotiations, that was considered a considerable diplomatic achivement as it formally ended hostilities between Russia and the NATO axis. On the same day he set up the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council to improve relations between European NATO and non-NATO coutries. In July in Madrid the former Eastern bloc nations of Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were invited to begin talks to enter NATO.

Keeping the peace in the Balkans continued to be both difficult and controversial. IFOR had received a lot of criticism for their inability to capture the Serbian and Bosnian leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Then on March 24, 1999, having repeatedly tried to negotiate with Serbia to stop it's repression of the Albanian poulation in Kosovo, and failing that then demanding that it do so, and having been given authorisation by NATO member states, he launched air attacks on military and civilian targets in both Serbia and Kosovo province. These attacks were made without the authorisation of the UN Security Council because of the opposition of Russia. Solana justified the attacks on humanitarian grounds, and on the responsibility of NATO to keep peace in the region. He said he wanted to avoid the ethnic cleansing seen in Bosnia. Solana and NATO were criticised for the civilian casualties their bombings caused; see Legitimacy of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. On April 23 and 24 the North Atlantic Council met in Washington D.C. where the Heads of State of the member nations changed the basic defensive nature of the organisation to allow for humanitarian interference, as well as giving greater military control to NATO, and other profound changes. On June 10 Serbia withdrew from Kosovo, and Solana stopped the attacks, which ended the Kosovo War. The same day Security Council Resolution 1244 allowed a NATO Kosovo Force to launch Joint Guardian and occupy the province on June 12. He left NATO on 6 October two months earlier than scheduled, and was replaced by George Robertson.

General Wesley Clark once asked Solana the secret of his diplomatic success. He answered, "Make no enemies, and never ask a question to which you do not know or like the answer." He has been described as a "squarer of circles".

EU Foreign Affairs

On June 3-4 1999 Solana was appointed foreign policy chief of the newly created CFSP, which had been established as the second of the three pillars of the EU in the Maastricht Treaty. He started on October 18, also becoming Secretary General of the EU, in which role he presides over the EU's Political and Security Committee (PSC). On November 25 he also became Secretary General of the WEU, a partially dormant European defence and security organization. He thus oversees the ongoing transfer of functions from the WEU to the EU. These posts were extended on June 29, 2004 when he was also designated the EU's first Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2006 (if the new EU constitution is ratified). He has received both criticism and praise for the extent of his new powers. He has said that even under the new constitution the minister can only act when there is unanimity amongst member states.

The Clinton White House claimed in May 2000 that Solana was the fulfillment of Henry Kissinger's desire to have a phone number to talk to Europe. In the same month Chris Patten, the European Commissioner for External Relations claimed that Solana was encroaching on his activities.

In December 2003 Solana released the European Security Strategy. In March 2004 he in response to the Madrid attacks he went on television, saying that he thought it was ETA. He later said he felt he had a duty to believe the government as a patriotic Spaniard.On 21 January 2005 he invited Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko to discuss future EU membership. He has negotiated numerous Treaties of Association between the European Union and various Middle Eastern and Latin American countries. He has played an important role working with the UN, Russia and the USA quartet in the Middle East and continues to be a primary architect of "The Roadmap" to work towards peaceful end to the conflict in Palestine. On July 20 2004 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refused to meet Solana, saying that Israel would not work with the EU. Solana played a pivotal role in unifying the remainder of the former Yugoslavian federation. He proposed that Montenegro formed a union with Serbia instead of having full independence. Solana stated this was done to avoid a domino effect from Kosovo and Vojvodina independence demands. Local media sarcastically named the new country "Solania". In November 2004, he assisted Britain, France, and Germany in negotiating a nuclear material enrichment freeze with Iran. The EU has stated it hopes to avoid another invasion like the Iraqi one through this and future negotiations, and Solana has said the most difficult moments of his job were when the United Kingdom and France, the 2 permanent EU Security Council members, were in disagreement.

Personal life

Solana is married to Concepción Giménez Solana, and they have 2 children. He has reportedly never moved his immediate family – wife and children – to Brussels, his main residence since taking his NATO post in the late fall of 1995 and his European Union posts thereafter. He has admitted that his family life has suffered as a result of the schedules from his NATO post and EU jobs forward. He has been said to eat little and sleep less, surviving on a diet of fish and fruit. He is a gun collector.

He is a frequent speaker at the prestigious US based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is likewise active with the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) as well as the New York City based East West Institute.

He is a Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George, a member of the Spanish section of the Club of Rome, and has received the Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic in Spain. He has also received the Manfred Wörner Medall of the Defense Minister in Germany.

Conspiracy theories

Some Christian fundamentalist apocalyptic websites claim that Solana is the Antichrist. See Javier Solana Antichrist allegations.

External links