Speech

Public appearances

MANAGING THE CHANGE IN EUROPE
Conference on European Health Care Reforms
Adress by Milan Kucan, President of the Republic of Slovenia

Ljubljana, 19 June 1996

"The West of Europe has, at least for itself, partly owing to the incessant confrontation with the East and the latter's threats to again destroy the balance imposed through military power, fear and political accords, built such a world of cooperative relations, in which it has been able to avoid conflict. This experience tells us that such a balance in Europe is possible; and therefore not simply that it is a vital interest, but that it is indeed a feasible reality."

This occasion presents an opportunity for me to set out my views and those of my country, the Republic of Slovenia, on the general political, economic, social and spiritual European realities, and within these to find a grounding for Slovenia's desire to affirm itself as a European nation and to participate actively in the all-European dialogue on political, security, economic and other forms of association, and in the dialogue on the European future. This is our unconcealed desire, which has a realistic foundation in the conviction that Europe is changing both in its understanding of itself and its position in the world.

After long centuries of conflict, war, hegemony, aggression and division, and following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, in Europe the proper conditions emerged for cooperation, recognition of differences, tolerance and association. Now we may respond to the question of Europe's future with greater reliability, and assert that Europe has now been decreed cooperation rather than division. The countries of Europe are no longer bound to ideologies, fundamentalisms and hegemonies, but to those values which form the very cornerstone of Europe's spiritual civilisation and political tradition -- respect of human dignity, safeguarding of human rights, the rule of law, equality before the law and the maxim of the freedom of the citizen as the source of state power. A commitment to these principles will in the future replace the concept of the classical nation-state, which was based on national collectivism, exclusivity and egoism, with the concept of a civic state, founded on the idea of the free and equal citizen. Here in the realistic possibility of cooperation and association, which will not ignore national identity or consciousness, this being one of the natural dimensions of every human identity, lies the current opportunity for Europe. Of course this happy and anticipated world of cooperation will not come simply of its own volition. But these things are too critical for Europe to allow itself, let alone be able, to let slip this opportunity, given its responsibility for the future. This will undoubtedly require enormous intellectual effort and action, since at this moment there are many more unresolved questions than there are solid and clear answers. We may also observe uncertainty, confusion and a lack of self-confidence or firm conviction on how to create this world of cooperation in our continent, when at the same time the world is changing, and along with it the role of Europe.

I. The end of a certain period at the turn of the millennium

I share the opinion of those who are convinced that with the approaching end of the second millennium of the modern era, we are seeing the conclusion of an important, centuries-long period of European history, within which Europe has stamped its dominant mark on the entire history of the world. If we were to simplify our picture of this period, we would definitely call it a period of Eurocentrism. Europe was long the decision-making hub of the human world. With its diverse spiritual and material influences, it decisively marked the entire civilisation of the world. Europe brought many very valuable things to humankind, but it also most certainly extended its influence at the expense of the rest of the world, or rather of the world as a whole. With its rationalist philosophy, its conception of time, progress, history and development, with its technological discoveries and inventions, with its political philosophy of the equality of citizens before the law and the rule of law, Europe unleashed not just unimaginable technological, scientific and material advances over a large part of the European continent, but also with its ethos of expansion, it strode beyond its continental boundaries and expanded its understanding of the spirit of progress, quality and sense of life to all other continents. In this way it went beyond the way of life such as was known by humankind before the centuries of discoveries, a life composed of various independent worlds and closed civilisations. It made a decisive contribution to the fact that the world would be dominated by planetary awareness and a recognition of one single, highly interdependent human world. Within this world, and due to the European understanding of progress and development, emerged new flashpoints and centres which now do not simply share in the decisions about the future of the world and humanity, but also in many ways have even gone beyond the European model. We do not need to list these places.

In this way Europe has become just one of the centres of humanity which must affirm its cooperation with others in the process of assuming responsibility for the future of the world, on which it no longer has exclusive influence. Humankind has entered a period of multicultural and therefore multipolar civilisation. Within it, Europe gives and receives. Now, too, it has something to give to the world, chiefly in the form of answers about the image and substance of its own future. This future is becoming something different; and for Europe this is an opportunity and a challenge.

At the same time we should remember that classical Eurocentrism, and the expansion of European systems to other continents was also marked by ruthless aggression, the suppression of other original cultures and religions, by robbery, oppression, colonisation and even the export of totalitarian ideologies, from Fascism and Nazism to Stalinism, military dictatorships, racism, genocide and concentration camps. This period was also one of colonisation, which at one time also marked Europe as the centre of enormous colonial empires, propped up by the theory of superiority of the European white man. This kind of Europe is also coming to an end, although not all traces of such systems have disappeared, and it will be long before they do. To this dark side of the European understanding of progress, expansion and development we must add the cult of the consumer society, and along with it the moral degradation of humankind, uncaring treatment of the natural environment, great social differences as a result of unscrupulous acquisitiveness, the production of destructive weapons, and the pragmatic reduction of human happiness and raison d'etre simply down to materialism. But all this is the Europe of a period that has gone, in which its instability was shown by the horrors of two world wars and by the senselessness of the Cold War, based on ideological polarisation, physically present in the lives of European people through the existence of the Iron Curtain.

If the hypothesis about the end of this contradictory historical period is accurate, then Europe has now come to a time when it might reconsider the opportunity for a new beginning, for a different kind of history and for influence in the world through its own example. Example of what? Of the fact that it is possible for a multitude of national identities and cultures to coexist creatively and peacefully, without an individual entity relinquishing its own culture and identity; that among the various nations it is possible to guarantee peace and cooperation, without subjugation, on the basis of an awareness of common responsibility for the future, without any nation losing its identity; that on the basis of mutual respect, solidarity and responsibility to the coming generations it is possible to behave with respect towards the environment and to protect it; that in line with the recognition of universalism and globalisation of the planet, common values can be found with other civilisations and cultures; and that in this common moral and spiritual denominator it is possible to create a more pleasant common life, a more tolerant and creative world, and to resist everything which threatens peace and this common life on our planet.

II. The qualities of Europe

So is such thinking realistic? I am convinced that it is. In spite of the many differences -- ethnic, geographical, economic and political, as well as spiritual -- Europe has nevertheless been closely connected and independent within itself, and is becoming increasingly so. Whatever has happened of any importance in its history at one end of the continent, has had decisive consequences for all, for the whole continent. Europe has always then sought in the ruins of one balance some new balance, and has rearranged the internal relations between its various parts. This vital balance has in the main been historically established by power relations, such that in their own interests the most powerful have imposed their will on the majority, as a rule victors over the defeated. The centuries of war in Europe were in fact attempts to establish such a balance, almost as far back as we can remember, and right up to the peace accords in Potsdam and Paris following the Second World War. Such balances have held until changed by historical circumstance, when the balance was overturned and once again the peace and very existence of each one of us, and all of us together, were threatened.

Europe has been convinced by its own history that it has only two possibilities, two paths. The first is that the balance for all of us who live in this continent and whose fate it is to continue living here, be established by the logic of might, through the incessant struggling of each for his own space, which as a rule has ended in disaster. The other path is for us in the name of our own and our common peace and reasonable future to come to some agreement about everything. And this is the opportunity which is now presented to Europe.

It is therefore worth seeking such a balance, which would respect equality and would therefore arise from the free will of all. It is worth persevering for an agreement in which each one would make some concession in order to achieve peace, tolerance and cooperation. This could make possible a conscious coexistence, which would essentially diminish the possibility of catastrophic conflicts, if not exclude this possibility altogether.

The West of Europe has, at least for itself, partly owing to the incessant confrontation with the East and the latter's threats to again destroy the balance imposed through military power, fear and political accords, built such a world of cooperative relations, in which it has been able to avoid conflict. This experience tells us that such a balance in Europe is possible; and therefore not simply that it is a vital interest, but that it is indeed a feasible reality. This is a reality in which the European nations and countries preserve their authenticity, and in which their cooperation is based on the same values -- on those of democracy, respect of human dignity, freedom and rights, the civil society and an open, competitive market economy. And there is simply no alternative to this. The only possible exit is to return to those times when the balance in Europe was not a result of reason, but of violence.

This historical experience tells us something else, too. It tells us that the divisions of Europe, including the most recent one of ideologies and blocs, are artificial and that for this reason they collapsed. There cannot be two Europes existing permanently side by side, without causing each other harm. It is extremely short-sighted, and unsubstantiated in history, to think that we can guarantee peace, a dignified life for people as well as their prosperity at one end of our continent, if at the other end there is none of this, if at the other end there is war and poverty, and human rights and dignity are trodden underfoot. Moreover, it is an illusion to think that in a world which is becoming increasingly small and is ever more orientated towards cooperation, Europe can be a factor of peace, stability and cooperation if it cannot first provide these for itself. The thresholds within Europe and thresholds between us and other parts of the world have become too low for us to ignore what is going on behind them. Furthermore, they are too low for us to shrink from our common responsibility! It is precisely in this that I base my conviction that Europe is fated to cooperation.

Nevertheless, we must ask ourselves the question in the face of such conviction, are not the European realities different? Is Europe not still divided? Divided into an economically advanced and socially stable part, and an economically and socially undeveloped part? Into a stable and secure Europe, where people live in relative prosperity, and into an unstable part with conflict and even war, where very existence itself is threatened! One of these divisions of Europe is represented by the Balkans, particularly Bosnia, with its uncertain relations and conditions of neither war nor peace. Objectively speaking, Europe also has a special relationship with Russia, through the rational awareness that it cannot isolate Russia, but without any clear answer about the proper linking into Europe of this great and in many ways contradictory European and Asian country. And of course Europe is also faced with institutional political divisions into those countries that are inside the Euro-Atlantic groupings and those that are not, whether they are close, for example with association agreements, such as my country of Slovenia in its relations with the EU, or whether they have no such agreement and therefore no clear prospects in this direction. These dividing lines run almost exactly where once ran the borders of the ideological and bloc divisions. This should be of rather greater concern to us. A divergence in economic and technological development, in environmental awareness, in the level of protection of human rights and in particular social tensions show that the fate of the whole of Europe could be decided in the East of the continent.

For the moment, however, the answers about the fate of all of us are primarily in the hands of the West of Europe. What does this mean? The political and realistic prospect of opening the doors of European integration to those countries which until recently were in Europe's political East, and which have experienced fifty years and more of Stalinist totalitarianism; nations which owing to the bloc divisions were held back not simply politically but also in terms of civilisation from the Western Christian civilisation, in which historically they had been formed, and thrust into a civilisation which was not theirs, which was foreign to them and in which they were out of place. They were thrust into a world and relations which held them back in their economic and social development. They see in the possibility of the doors to the EU opening up to them the prospect of making up more quickly the lost ground in their development -- in their civilisation, their spiritual life, their economies and social prosperity. They see in this possibility a great challenge and spur to development, the correction of certain historical injustices, a return to their spiritual home and to their traditional civilisation.

So why is this ambition linked precisely to the EU? One reason is that this is the only realistic existing European integration, and it is not possible to think of association in Europe without it. The European opportunity about which I am speaking is also a great challenge and trial. This opportunity itself arose in a time and in conditions of the division of Europe into political blocs. The economic community has become a political alliance. Its relations are taking deeper roots, they are being affirmed in the challenging process of harmonisation of interests with regard to the common and individual future of each member. At the same time Europe faces the challenge and the recognised need to expand, particularly to that part which until recently was marked as the political East, which through its very existence contributed significantly to the genesis and integration of the EU itself. The EU therefore faces a challenge to show its capacity to conceive of the Europe after Maastricht as well as the Europe after Berlin. Both are in the interest of Europe as a whole. For the expansion of the development of Western economies and companies will most certainly not stop. On the contrary, this is a long-term investment in the development of the European spirit, and the expansion of its economic and cultural space on the threshold of the new millennium. Yet for this we also need serious common efforts to reduce and get past this developmental divergence. Events in Eastern Europe have an eventual influence on the West of Europe; and not simply on the economy. This is not a question of passing the buck. This is a question simply of an awareness of the essentially linked common life in this area, from which we cannot flee.

The rather convoluted nature of the current European associations, including the EU, is becoming clear to us, since for a variety of reasons, with the construction of numerous legal and other mechanisms required by the Europe of Maastricht there was no concurrent formulation of a new cohesive web of values or spiritual identity. The EU seems to be undergoing a kind of crisis in the criteria of its institutions. This is perhaps just the external expression of a lack of spiritual concept of the EU, or perhaps even a crisis of the European idea, of European values, which could be the integrative tissue, the substance, the sense and worth of European institutional cooperation and integration. No community can in the long term survive merely as a collection of mechanisms and procedures of decision-making, no matter how perfect they are. We could take the former Yugoslavia as an example of this. For the last ten years of its life it was in the midst of constant institutional reforms, and it had almost carried through to perfection its mechanisms of decision-making, which should have guaranteed national equality within the common state and the efficiency of state administration, yet it nevertheless collapsed. It no longer had any integrative ideas or values which would function as the integrative tissue and bind parts of the otherwise heterogeneous multi-ethnic community. The dominant position was taken by factors contributing to disintegration, and all the possible historical conflicts and other atavisms which for decades had been contained in a deep sleep, awoke and set out on their destructive path.

At the core of the associative idea must be the values of European civilisation and political tradition. This means primarily the idea of the free citizen as the fundamental value which is not simply a measure of democracy, but also the only possible basis for peaceful and equal cooperation between states. European cooperation cannot be achieved in limiting the freedom and reducing the rights of citizens of individual countries, but in the expansion of the scope of their freedom and their actual enjoyment of rights. But this requires a definite break from that tradition of thinking whereby political responsibility is linked simply to loyalty to one's own interest group, to the political party, to the state, and not to the broader community, to life on the entire continent and to all life on the planet.

The emergence of Europe as one single area of democracy and solidarity might appear today as something of an illusion, particularly when the majority of the EU is faced with the very real and pragmatic problems of the level of contributions, allocation of subsidies and transport permits, the export of meat from mad cows and similar. And such a Europe cannot be achieved overnight. It is not realistic to expect that the doors to the EU could immediately be thrown open to all. It is possible, however, to give an assurance today, that the doors will be opened, to formulate a logic of this opening up as well as the fundamental principles of the community, and to invite cooperation and dialogue on these questions from those who desire it and who fulfil the relevant conditions.

We should not forget that the war against Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a part of the European reality. One of the features of Europe is the barely established, fragile peace in the south-east and the Balkans. We have dealt with the war in the Balkans, and have identified the mistakes of great countries. The current state of affairs is one of neither peace nor war. War could break out again tomorrow. Have the political circles of Europe forgotten that in two world wars, and now in the current Balkan War, peace has only been achieved through the intervention of the USA? What has happened to the European security mechanisms? This latent quality of war should be a cause for concern. True peace is not possible through the balance of military might between the two regional powers, Croatia and Serbia. Nor through the addition of the third, the Bosnians, even if that were possible. It is possible only by opening up the prospects of rendering this entire area truly European.

I would again wish to remark that the fallout from the collapse of the Berlin Wall spread to all corners of the skies. The structural changes of the post-communist countries merit positive assessment in view of the great internal efforts, carried out despite the rather luke-warm enthusiasm of certain Western countries over more visible forms of help. Although the economic changes were most important and most visible, we should not ignore the importance of the change in the philosophy of life, and along with it the issues of the social and economic security of citizens. Critical words should be expressed over those rare but influential Western judgements which still measure the conditions and effectiveness of transition according to ideological criteria, even prejudices, and not according to criteria by which they assess conditions among themselves and in the West as a whole. These criteria are respect of human rights, the market economy and parliamentary multi-party democracy. Recognition of these criteria demands a recognition of the legitimacy of all political orientations which respect these criteria, from right to left. The assessments of a return to communism or of nostalgia for it are for this reason too facile, and can lead to serious errors. The great majority of people in all the so-called transition countries sincerely desired and supported change. They invested in this change great expectations and hopes, including some that were rather less realistic. But promises were often made which were impossible to fulfil. Disappointments were inevitable, but this did not mean an end to hope. The election results, which in many places removed from the scene the first political forces of the post-transition period, signified primarily a pressure from the electorate for greater consistency in fulfilling promises and a perseverance in the orientations which would lead to the fulfilment of expectations and realisation of hopes which people invested in change. Post-communism is a challenge to all, although it demands not only intellectual effort, but also action from all of us who cooperated in the collapse of the Berlin Wall, from either side of the Wall.

III. The future Europe

I did not have the ambition to find answers to the fundamental problems and quandaries of Europe today, or to the question of how we might come most successfully from its current realities to its future. It is quite clear to us, however, that an egocentric Europe, whether inwardly or outwardly towards other parts of the world, has little hope of real survival. The reduction of plans for a common European home down to merely different timetables governing when and who will become members of the EU or NATO, to various financially technocratic criteria over fulfilment of conditions for membership, is not enough, although it represents an urgent but not necessary modus operandi of those countries which can assume the greatest responsibility for planning changes. The entrenching of borders between the so-called stable and unstable parts of Europe for a long period of time would undoubtedly create a new division, which might revive the surviving ideologies and the model of a bipolarisation of ideological and political blocs. Indeed a look back into Europe's history tells us that the fundamental guiding principle for consideration and action over the future of Europe must be the European spiritual identity, the European value system or, as some say, the European soul.

Let me reiterate my conviction. Never before has there been such an opportunity for this project as we have now, at the end of the current millennium. Multiculturalism, multiethnicity, multinationalism, multiregionalism, at the very centre of which is a high level of respect for human dignity, for individual and collective rights, should be one of the components of this European spiritual identity. The regenerated concept of a civilisation of social justice, tolerance, dialogue and mutual assistance could give a new impetus to the establishing of this identity. We would see the strengthening of an awakened philosophy of humanism, which would be built on true Christian transcendence, and on the surpassing of what we have and of human complacency, arrogance and cynicism towards the natural environment. A European home conceived and realised in such a way could be one political and civilisational entity, many-layered, complex and composed of singular differences, and yet linked through political, security and economic threads designed to provide security and an affirmation of European values, which would represent the cornerstone of the whole structure. In this way it would be arranged and prepared for fruitful and successful competition, as well as creative cooperation, with other centres and areas of the human world, which with great enthusiasm and perseverance are entering the next millennium, and seeking ways of living on this planet not simply in tolerance of each other, but also creatively and in community with each other.

It is true that the current European realities are still rather different. It is beyond dispute, however, that Europe needs a vision of development, and I believe that it is capable of fulfilling this. My thoughts might perhaps be a modest contribution to the formulation of this vision. Slovenia wishes to be involved creatively and responsibly in this formulation and in the fulfilment of such a vision.