SECRETARY-GENERAL PRAISES SLOVAKIA'S PROGRESS TOWARDS INTEGRATION WITH EUROPE, CALLS FOR COLLECTIVE EFFORT IN BALKANS, IN BRATISLAVA ADDRESS
Press Release
SG/SM/7069
SECRETARY-GENERAL PRAISES SLOVAKIA'S PROGRESS TOWARDS INTEGRATION WITH EUROPE, CALLS FOR COLLECTIVE EFFORT IN BALKANS, IN BRATISLAVA ADDRESS
19990716 Following is the address of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, on 15 July:I am delighted to be here today. First, I am proud of the honour you have bestowed on me at this ceremony. This University, the oldest in Slovakia, seeks in its mission to look to the widest international horizons. And so, this degree is truly an honour for me. Second, I am excited -- as are my wife and all my team -- to get to know first hand the Slovak people and the Slovak Republic. To discover a nation still so young, yet a people so rich in history, culture and traditions.
Although this is the first visit of a United Nations Secretary-General to your independent country, your country has already made its mark on the United Nations. Most recently, we have seen this in the excellent service of your extremely able Foreign Minister as my special envoy for the Balkans. It is with good reason that Eduard Kukan is known as the diplomats' diplomat. He possesses a true talent for communicating with people and an exceptional expertise as regards the players and politics of the region. I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Slovakia's mark on the United Nations is also plain to see for all diplomats who arrive at our Headquarters in New York. Just outside the Delegates Entrance to the General Assembly stands a gift from the people and Government of Slovakia, in the form of a statue of St. Cyrill and St. Methodius. It is a gift in several ways.
It is a masterpiece of great power, created by Andrej Rudavsky -- an artist who, for three decades, has taken as a leitmotif these two remarkable brothers. And so, this statue guards the United Nations as a symbol of our universal brotherhood; the brothers form a fitting pair of sentries at the gateway between the nations of the world and the forum in which they seek to harmonize their various aspirations. I am all the more heartened to learn that the brothers are also with us here at Comenius University, since you have a Faculty of Theology named after Cyrill and Methodius.
Above all, the statue is a gift because it enriches our house of many nations with a permanent symbol of the young Slovak Republic; a nation born not out of brutality or bloodshed, but through a process of democratic and peaceful transition; a nation striving to assert its identity not through oppression and aggression, but through reform and re-engagement. And as the Slovak nation makes its presence felt in the world organization, so is it making its identity known in the world at large. We see more signs of this happening all the time.
I know that two weeks ago, your Parliament approved the dispatch of 40 army engineers to join peacekeepers in Kosovo. It was recognition that this region can only succeed if all its actors contribute to its common stability.
I know that last month's presidential election has strengthened your position vis-à-vis the European Union. Indeed, the European Union has publicly expressed confidence that the stabilizing effect of the elections has improved the chances of Slovakia starting accession negotiations.
I know that the prospect of membership has helped you and other central Europeans to settle, or at least to manage, your differences with each other. It has given you the courage and self-confidence to reform your economies. And it has given you a strong incentive to build democratic institutions, with entrenched respect for human and civil rights. The desire to achieve "European" standards has been a strong force for democracy.
I know that your Government has indeed pledged to continue efforts to stabilize and reform the economy. It has already taken strong steps towards greater transparency and good governance. And it has approved a proposal for a law on the use of languages of ethnic minorities. Constitutionally and institutionally, Slovakia is growing stronger every day.
Ties with the Czech Republic are growing stronger too. The meeting of your President and President Havel last week was a promising move to make the best of the close ties of the past. As in all the best divorces, neither side should come away feeling that they have won or lost. As in all the best partnerships, both sides should come away feeling that, through the experiences they are sharing, each continues to grow and to learn.
But as you direct your efforts towards joining the fast stream of Europe, I hope that you will also remember those further behind. We are judged in life as much by the friends we keep as the ones we make. I believe it is no less true in the family of nations. It would be sad indeed if European unity in practice led to a new division, with, on one side, a comfortable, prosperous, democratic western Europe -- or west-and-central Europe -- and, on the other side, an impoverished, war-torn, resentful eastern and south-eastern Europe. It will be especially sad, I think, if the Union gives the impression that any country is excluded because of its religious or cultural heritage.
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I am not suggesting that the problem can be solved by simply throwing open the European Union's doors to all comers, abandoning any requirement that new members be able to accept and implement the framework of shared law and common values which binds the Union together. In any case, membership in the European Union is not properly a subject for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to make suggestions about.
But one way of creating a more inclusive Europe might be to give higher priority to building up those institutions which already embrace a wider membership: the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations' own Economic Commission for Europe. In these bodies, members and non-members of the European Union sit side by side on equal terms. If the European Union members paid more attention to them and made greater use of them, the non-European Union members' sense of marginalization could be much reduced.
It should not have required the horrors in the Balkans to bring forth imaginative proposals for the reconstruction of south-eastern Europe. How much might have been avoided if such ideas had been actively pursued earlier. The trauma of Kosovo has brought all this into painful focus. It has given a life-and-death urgency to our collective duty: the duty to rebuild Kosovo, to restore stability in the region and to ensure that a ravaged Europe is reborn a whole continent.
Our collective objective is a multi-ethnic Kosovo in which the people -- all the people -- regardless of ethnicity, can live their lives in peace and hope. A key challenge will be engaging the various political groupings in Kosovo in a process of rehabilitation and reconciliation, which will improve as a sense of security takes root. And this sense of security must take root among Serbs and other ethnic groups no less than the Kosovar Albanians, for we aspire to a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
Equally, for Kosovo really to succeed, the region as a whole must also be brought back to health. Reconstruction of Kosovo requires recovery in the region as a whole. The stability and prosperity of all States in the region requires a functioning society in the region as a whole. The economies of these countries are simply so dependent on one another that we cannot afford to ignore or neglect any one of them, for whatever reason.
And so the months and years ahead will be a test for the people of Kosovo, for the leaders of the region and for the international community as a whole. It is one of the most challenging tests any of us has ever had to face.
But face it we must. None of us -- I repeat, none of us -- can do it alone. For in many ways, administering the peace will be far more difficult than prosecuting the war. Building the pillars of reconstruction will require all of
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us to cooperate, whether it be international organizations, governments or civil society. And the ability of the United Nations, or other organizations, to do the job we have to do will depend entirely on the will of Member States to pledge the resources they can and turn those pledges into reality.
Kosovo will not be rebuilt in a month, or a year. The Balkans will not be restored to stability by one organization, or one group of governments. Europe can be reborn only by the collective will of all the region and all the international community. It requires a coalition of actors looking not for each other's shortcomings, but looking in the same direction. Let us all keep our focus steadily in that direction. Thank you all.
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