EXPECTATIONS OF A GROWING TOGETHER IN EUROPE
International Economic Conference on the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan
Speech by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Milan Kucan

Berlin (Germany), 27 June 1997



Ladies and Gentlemen, Excellencies,

You will understand that it is a special honour for me to speak to you here at this consultation and exchange of opinions on this, the fiftieth anniversary of the European Recovery Program, or simply the Marshall Plan. This Plan was put into action two years after the end of the Second World War, following the victory of the democratic Allies over the totalitarianism of Nazism and Fascism. The victory was possible chiefly because of the decisive military intervention of the USA, which for the second time in the turbulent history of the 20th century came to ensure the end of war in Europe and the rule of peace.

The Marshall Plan stimulated the economic renewal of a Europe in ruins. Unfortunately this was only possible in the Western countries, for at that time the invidious Iron Curtain was already in place, and the Eastern European countries rejected this aid in line with the ideological and political exclusivism of the then Stalinist regimes. The consequences of this are known. Europe is still facing these consequences today, and will clearly be faced with them in the future. And it is precisely for this reason that it is essential for us to turn our thoughts towards the European future, which now, before we enter into the new millennium, has the opportunity for a Europe-wide reconciliation and in this way to realise the free community of European countries, which will be founded on social stability, competitive cooperation in the common economic area, the rule of human rights and other values of the Euro-American democratic tradition.

Never before in the human history of continents have we been so interdependent and connected as we are today. A comparison with human life at the beginning of the first millennium of our common era, and the changes brought by the second millennium, show an enormous difference and extraordinary development, particularly economic, technological and informational. Here we should in no way overlook the exciting innovations brought into the human world by original Christianity with its paradigm of the equality of people before the highest idea, before God. Over two thousand years this pattern inspired countless individuals and peoples, countless social utopias and movements for social justice. And yet for historical reasons it was not able to become universal and bring the world together. Right up until the Second World War the human world remained a collection of different self-contained worlds, which lived their own life, closed in on themselves, and pursued their own spiritual, cultural and political traditions. And this includes Europe, which particularly in the final centuries of the second millennium experienced a developmental explosion, and chiefly through the discovery of the New World and through technological inventions it became the developmental generator of an increasingly interdependent world. The world was marked by Eurocentrism, with all the positive and negative effects of the European presence on other continents. Now the era of Eurocentrism has finally passed. The world has become multipolar. The European political, economic, cultural and spiritual domination of the second half of this millennium is now definitely over. For Europe this is a new challenge and a new opportunity. And the need for a fundamental reconsideration of Europe's future now represents an ultimatum.

Multipolarity is the new system upon which functions the interdependent human world of all continents. Outside Europe, which despite the physical removal of the Iron Curtain remains in several ways divided, new centres of power have emerged in the world - centres of political, economic, financial and spiritual power, which at the same time represent new developmental centres and generators of change in human civilisation. This brings with it new questions that require answers. I would hazard a guess - with a certain simplification - that the central dilemma now facing humankind is this: will humankind understand multipolarity as an opportunity for competitive cooperation between several powerful developmental centres, on the basis of convincingly civilised rules, and in this way achieve the optimal synergetic effect of this competition, or will it allow a relapse of this competition into more or less coercive attempts by individual centres to establish hegemony, to dominate others, even through military force? Put another way, does our future lie in the subordination of individual parts of the world, which will be justified by the egoistical benefit of others who are more powerful and more developed, or will the future lie in a fusion of the world and humanity? To serve the common benefit and an agreeable common future.

Once upon a time the bonum communae, general prosperity, was defined only for the individual country. The same went for social stability. Now general prosperity, social stability and ecological balance are world and transnational issues.

Within these horizons and reaches of the modern world we can more clearly see the responsibility of Europe, of the European countries, the European political elite and all those who hold dear the common European home as the single productive possibility. Within Europe there are in fact several Europes, whether as a consequence of old or as an indication of new divisions. This truth is faced by the awareness that only a united Europe, a Europe of cooperation will be able successfully to compete and cooperate with other developmental centres in the world. This fundamental European self-consideration is not possible without taking account of the awareness that has grown out of the long history of European conflicts. Without an unbiased view of this history we cannot grasp Europe, the continent where there has been a long series of unsettled accounts between mutually exclusive nations and their states, or between exclusive ententes and more or less permanent alliances, or between exclusive ideological blocs, providing a continuous inducement to exercising the politics of force. We can only hope that it was true when various distinguished figures of European politics said that in 1989 here, in Berlin, we had finally seen the end of the period of conflict and division that had been with us right from 1914. This could be true, but with one reservation: if Europe as a whole will be able to unite and fuse, as Western Europe was able to do in the years following the Second World War, when through cooperation it responded to the long and bloody period of setting up and then destroying the balance of power and fear, destruction and the spilling of blood and tears of millions of Europeans and Americans. In a short time after the Second World War, despite all the smaller and larger problems it faced, Western Europe was able to wield sufficient political wisdom to shrug off the dead hand that was still reaching out to it. Western Europe stepped away from its history.

This happened through an awareness that fusion and cooperation were the only option that could stay or even prevent a return to the old politics of the balance of force, to the domination of superpowers and to similar patterns of "salvation" which in the end always transformed into war, and before that they became in many places state and ideological totalitarianism. Now the European option is presented in continent-wide dimensions. We must state our position clearly: whether we favour a return to the traditional European system of the balance of force, or a determined continuation of the path towards continent-wide integration, with the gradual and in no way discriminatory involvement of all those countries that desire this, into the European Union and NATO. Now the countries of Central Europe are waiting their turn, and it is these countries that have always been most seriously affected - even in terms of our civilisation - by European divisions. We must either choose common European institutions or risk new conflicts and the new hegemony of select countries. Priority should be given to the cooperation of all and not to the struggle for specific interest groups. What we are concerned with here is how we see our future. Do we see a Europe with nationally self-contained structures, with the domination of superpowers along nineteenth century lines, or do we see an integrated Europe of the twenty-first century. The long illness of self-containment in this world that has become a global village can only be overcome if we stand up to European provincialism with European globalism. If Europe remains unconnected, divided or even in confrontation, in the world of new centres of expansive and dynamic growth our entire continent will be condemned to marginalisation, including those countries that are today major players in the world's economic and political life.

The country of Slovenia, which I represent, is a part of Central Europe. The recent meeting of the eight presidents of the countries of this part of Europe, involving Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia once again confirmed two things: firstly, that Central Europe is not simply a geographical notion, but that after the removal of the iron curtain this area saw the revival of common values characteristic of this special and unique cultural and spiritual community. The common characteristics of this area are founded on the positive tradition of being committed to the revival of spiritual values such as mutual respect, acceptance of diversity, tolerance and dialogue, equality, a similar or the same historical fate, the palimpsestic cultures of these nations and the desire to go beyond the exclusivism of the nation state through the openness of a citizen’s state, and to create productive relations between them. Central Europe no longer desires to be a kind of intermediary political zone between Western and Eastern Europe. I wants now to be incorporated fully into European institutions and NATO. A Europe brought together is in line with the nature of Central European values, indeed it is our future, and for this reason we wish with our experience and ideas to have an influence on the future of the united Europe. To leave anyone from Central Europe standing outside the gates to the EU and NATO means to maintain or renew the European divisions. The fixing of all or parts of Central Europe as a kind of intermediary space would also be inadmissable because of the great hopes and efforts of these nations following the structural political changes in 1989 and 1990. With sincere expectations and by actively implementing change, the Central European nations cast off the armour of the totalitarian system, the system into which they were unceremoniously shoved during the Second World War, and the system that was forged after it. For this reason, after 1990 we did not want to become a hunting ground for various political and, more particularly, economic and financial elites, who would be serving only their own interests. Patiently, but persistently, and with the occasional setback, these countries have been implementing political, economic, security and other reforms, in order to become entirely compatible with the Western European countries that have a long democratic tradition.

For this reason, too, they may justifiably expect full understanding for their manifold difficulties. Changes could not be brought about overnight, for the divergences in civilisation and thought that came as a result of fifty years under a different tradition of thought went deeper than it seemed when the Berlin Wall collapsed. Changes require time, as well as the understanding hand of cooperation, particularly in the light of what are sometimes very polarised social conflicts, which arise through the introduction of the market economy and the removal of unjust but deeply rooted social privileges from the former system. Moral support and psychological motivation is important for these countries. Just as during the time of the Marshall Plan, today this is still more important than material help.

Europe is slowly responding to the challenges of the post-communist period. We need a more recognisable shift from the policy of preventing conflict towards a policy of involvement and towards the cooperation of partners. For the EU today it is therefore important to understand how critical is the question whether in the future we will have one Europe or two or even three. For the future of Europe it is important that the western, developed part is compatible with the eastern, developing part. It is clear now that the changes that took place in the East have had an effect on all of Europe. Their depth and dimensions surprised not just the East, but also the West. The West should treat the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as partners, albeit weaker partners, in their efforts to secure the future. These countries will understand that they are not responsible solely for their own development, but also for the stability of the continent. Just as the members of the EU are trying to maintain their strategic position and in line with this seeking answers to the further enlargement of the EU, so the Central and Eastern European countries, which have set themselves the target of the earliest possible inclusion in the EU, are seeking their own development concept in line with this target.

Both sides should be aware that restructuring is a global phenomenon. It is not confined simply to one country, nor to Western, Eastern and Central Europe. The most important reason for such an extensive restructuring is the removal of local market boundaries. Countries must harmonise their economies with the new world realities. Understanding the fact that restructuring is a global phenomenon inevitably brings us back to the opening question about the essential compatibility of Eastern and Central Europe, or the bridging of the differences in development between the economies in transition and the economies of the advanced countries. Only involvement and partnership can create the bridge between the one side and the other, a bridge expanding the nucleus of the democratic countries with efficient economies. It is up to the EU to accept this challenge and exploit it for the strategic positioning of Europe among the economic superpowers of the world on the threshold of the next millennium.

In the short span of five years Europe, that is, all of us, have experienced two extremes: the optimistic celebrations in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and the horrific slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We cannot overlook the fact that even this war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia ended only with the effective intervention of the USA and NATO forces, and with Dayton. For the third time in the 20th century, American troops intervened in Europe. We are now experiencing a not entirely explainable hold up in the creation of the European collective security, the new European order, the new European home, if I might mention some of the examples and expressions from those years when it seemed that the continent was on the best possible path to escape from its five hundred year history of division. We have indeed seen the German and Czech reconciliation and the start of a climate of understanding between Italy and Slovenia, as well as other positive signs and new ideas. And yet it is true that we are still far from the Europe as the home of homes to all the citizens of European countries, to all the wealth of national, political and spiritual diversity of the people of our continent. Is Europe as a home to free people, of equal and fully responsible nations, really just a utopia? I would like to believe that it is not, and that our efforts to attain such a home will pay off. The memory of the Marshall Plan brings us close to invaluable experiences and encourages us towards new inspiration for the new period of development, which will this time be for the entire European continent.