This AMEURUS conference, organised in collaboration with the Bertelsmann Foundation, was held at Schlosshotel Kronberg near Frankfurt. Much of the discussion focussed on the prospects for closer trilateral political and economic coordination between the AMEURUS Troika: America, Europe and Russia.
It was imperative for this leading group of world powers to arrive at a common perception of the threat posed by terrorism and by weapons of mass destruction and to search for consensus on conflict management. There was no attempt to skirt over the difficulties of achieving agreement on matters such as the conditions under which pre-emptive military intervention is justified or how to deal with failed states. There was concern that disagreements over Iraq as well as US-European tensions over the EU’s goal of setting up its own defence arm would undermine or at least delay trilateral co-operation on security matters.
It was also stressed that China must not be excluded from cooperative efforts. Many of the exchanges reflected concern over differences in political and economic culture which often create obstacles to closer cooperation between Americans, Russians and the Europeans. But on the whole, the conference felt the members of the AMEURUS Troika needed each other too much to be deterred from seeking ways of working more closely together.
Participants included Lord Weidenfeld (Chairman, Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Robert Cooper (Director General for external and Politico-Military Affairs, Council of the European Union); Sir Michael Jay (Permanent Under-Secretary, Head of Strategy and Innovation, FCO); Klaus Naumann (Former General, Former Chairman, NATO Military Committee); Pascal Lamy (European Commission); Carl Bildt (Former Prime Minister of Sweden); Andrej Illarionov (Adviser to the President, Russian Federation); Denis Macshane (Minister of State of the United Kingdom, FCO), Roland Berger (Chairman of the Board, Roland Berger & Partners); Hans Martin Bury (Minister of State, Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany); Hans-Ulrich Klose (Deputy Chairman, External Affairs Committee, German Bundestag); Richard Haas (Chairman, Council of Foreign Relations of the United States of America); Strobe Talbott (President, The Brookings Institution); Anatoly Chubais (CEO, Unified Energy System Russia); Yegor Gaidar (Director, Institute of Economy in Transition).