The Role of Small Nations in the European Union


I start with a question: What is Europe? It is a little peninsula of the Eurasian continent in the ocean, insignificant in its size and empty of natural resources, the end of a big horse's tail. But still it managed to become the development engine of the entire world - how can it be explained?

When you look at the map of the world, you notice that the coastline of the little peninsula of Europe is relatively long. There is no other region in the world that has so much coastline per square kilometre of hinterland. This tempts to treat Europe as a model of information exchange.

If we would go back to our roots in ancient times, we would see that Homo sapiens used the Strait of Bosphorus, coasts and river valleys to attack our distant predecessors the Neanderthals, who finally retreated to Spain, the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula and to the Balkan mountains as single isolates, where they finally became extinct. Using modern terminology, I would treat the coastline and the system of rivers as our ancient information channels. Independent of people, plant and animal species also spread through these narrow and easily observed corridors and increased the diversity of European natural environment. Therefore, the length of the line where the sea and the land meet has been the determining factor on which the intensity of information transfer from one place to another has depended. The term information includes skills, beliefs, goods and services. In addition to the intensity of transfer, I would like to use another term, namely the tension of transfer. This depended on the difference between levels, the difference of the natural environment. In my opinion, not enough attention has been paid to the fact that differences were considerably bigger in the north-to-south or the meridian direction than in the west-to-east or the latitudinal direction. These mathematical dependencies appeared with different dynamics in different times, depending on the cultural level of ancient people. Lévi-Strauss talks about the type of a Palaeolithic palm axe, which was in use for one to two hundred thousand years in a huge territory that stretched from France to the Yellow Sea. He even uses the expression ''standardised product''. I mention this well-known example only because I want to emphasise the difficulty of understanding time and space. Now, when we can measure history also quantitatively, we are interested in the following result: in ancient Rome, transport of grains by sea between Africa and Italy cost the same as transport of grains seventy kilometres inland from the European coast. These examples allow me to refer to several conclusions. Goods exchange in the south-to-north direction has, especially in Europe, been more probable than in the east-to-west direction, due to the bigger difference in the natural environment that I referred to as tension. Export of grains from Estonia and Livonia to Italy and Spain in the early Middle Ages, about which I had a brotherly discussion with Professor Vilho Niitemaa right here in Turku a quarter of a century ago, is an excellent illustration to the above. But a second conclusion can also be made here, namely that expansions in the west-to-east direction are more probable than in the north-to-south direction, because expansion, whether for the purpose of migration or conquest, seeks to remain within the borders of the habitual climatic belt. But one way or the other, exchange of information has always been one precondition to successful human activities, but it was not sterile like between the connected vessels that we know from physics which leads to levelling of information, but such exchange of information that creates a new need information that is even larger, more intensive and contains more tension. This is not a perpetuum mobile, but rather Sampo, known in our modern world as Nokia.

The exceptionally long coastline of Europe is definitely not the only characteristic of the westernmost part of Eurasia. Actually we do not even notice it, like a fish does not notice its environment, but rather the absence of its environment, but then it is already too late. When we talk about our small Europe, we first and foremost refer to its cultural multitude. This exceptional concentration of different cultural traditions on a tiny peninsula is something unique. What does this cultural diversity lean on? It is hard to say. Maybe on human will. The will to remain oneself. In such a case we have to talk about the balance that did not allow the differences to become fatally big in Europe. I have never known how to explain to myself, for example, the differences in the cultures of Estonia and Latvia. These are two very small areas located in the same climatic zone, sharing the same sea, a similar history, and the same kings and emperors. And still the folklore, literature, music, theatre, painted art are amazingly different. They are so different that they are drawn to each other. This is not a fatal difference, but rather the kind of difference that deepens with the aid of each other, that deepens from the wish to be different. An episode from the time of the great explorations is may serve as a contrast. The Spaniards killed the West Indians in order to find out whether the natives had souls. The natives in their turn killed Spaniards in order to find out whether they would decompose. Both of them tried to discover the human being in an alien culture, but did it for the price of the human being, in order words - they did it similarly, but fatally. Anyway, we inherited the kind of Europe where we are different next to each other; every one of us is somewhat peculiar. And therein lies the strength of Europe. There are big nations with their all-embracing cultures who design the main features of world politics also today. And there are numerous small nations and those that may be called tiny, who also do not lack the will to express themselves. In Europe, this will has found a solution and become reality. When we do not consider Iceland, then we, Estonians, are the smallest nation in the world who has the entire spectre of cultural and political identity in its own language: higher education, universities, religious life, literature, and the political structure of a state. It is not often that we think about the smallness of Europe. For instance, that the entire population of Scandinavia barely equals the population of the city of Los Angeles. Or that there are less people in the three Baltic States altogether than in Moscow, or that Brazil is five times bigger than the area of Germany, Italy, France and Spain combined. Europe does not worship quantity, but quality. ''Big is beautiful'' is alien to Europe, maybe because Europe itself is small and its greatness is first and foremost spiritual. The sum of the cultural nations and states of our tiny continent creates the miracle that we call Europe. This extraordinary multitude of cultures has without a doubt been the result of the geographical multitude of Europe, a present from nature, like any natural resources. And like in the case of natural resources, it took us until recently to learn how to appreciate them and treat them sparingly. Or, if you wish, to pretend being sparing.

Therefore, the cultural diversity of Europe is completed by cultural tolerance, which is what makes the existence of such multitude actually possible. The absence of tolerance brings about upheavals that decrease the opportunities of small nations to express themselves and during which the potential of entire Europe is inhibited. If Europe does not use its potential itself, it does not mean that someone else will not do it. We do not have to look far for examples: the emergence of democratic America in the previous century, while most Europeans suffered under narrow-minded personality cults, or the later time when Europe was split and when the miracle economies of Japan, Korea and other South-eastern states appeared.

Every nation has the possibility, the necessity and the obligation of self-determination. Independent statehood is the supreme self-realisation of every nation. This can be done only once. When established once, it is principally inalienable. The Finns and the Estonians have taken this step during the last century. But regardless of this, the fate of our nations has nevertheless turned out to be different. The Republic of Estonia did maintain its legal independence all though the occupation - and it was acknowledged by most of the democratic world - but the weight of the occupation by totalitarian order fell on our shoulders. The totalitarian outlook of the world together with the secret pacts of Hitler and Stalin from 1939 tore Europe apart and with the help of the iron curtain, pushed many Central European states off the road of free development. It is paradoxical that both the Declaration of Human Rights and the Russian and German totalitarianism are children of European political thinking. The temptations of totalitarianism are big: it gives a fast lead in situations of crisis, as we know from the experience of Russia and Germany in industrialisation and liquidation of unemployment, but this lead has been borrowed from the future. The debt is paid back in victims of war or in economic crisis. Therein lies the tragedy of totalitarianism, it bends people under one way of thinking and one objective. Levelled way of thinking destroys creativity and replaces intensive economy with extensive one. When two barrels of oil have to be spent in order to produce one barrel, it is clear that this state is approaching collapse. This painful development is possible only when the majority of the people have understood and accepted its inevitability.

When we restored our independence in Estonia ten years ago, we did have strong support grounds in the form of the legal continuity and democratic legislation of the Republic of Estonia from the pre-war period.

Are we now able to draw the right conclusions from this and to understand that the democracy of Europe and the development potential of Europe depend on the diversity of Europe? This means that I have to ask what small states mean and what is their role in the world today. I have focused on small nations twice when I have been speaking in the UN General Assembly. In current world politics, dominated by big states, people tend to forget that small states form the majority in the world. But true enough - a silent majority. Since their foundation, the League of Nations and later the United Nations Organisation have unfortunately been centred on big states in the principles of their establishment. It could somehow be understood at the time these world organisations were formed, but as a result of the de-colonisation process, the UN has expanded only on account of new small states. There are no new big states left anywhere. How could we achieve the situation where the voice of the silent majority of the small states would also be heard loud and clear in the world and especially in Europe?

For this purpose, the small states have to take certain steps themselves. When we talk about the concerns of small states in general, we have to be able to differentiate their problems and treat small states belonging in different groups separately. At the same time all of them have something in common, like fragility of the security dimension or the selection of people that is limited when compared to big states. Unfortunately Estonia failed to organise a congress of small states in Tallinn which would have focused on such issues. Many big states were in favour of the idea of the congress of small states, the Tallinn Congress - and among the first ones was Boris Yeltsin, who was then the President of the Russian Federation.

Due to the expansion of the European Union, the issue of small states has become a new value. There are big member states in the European Union, such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and then there are small ones such as Denmark, Belgium, Holland. The big ones need the small ones in order to maintain the balance in Europe that drives it further, because there are always certain conflicts between the big ones and the presence of the small ones is needed to overcome them. Small states are the lubricating oil of Europe and the mortar of Europe.

The survival and development of small nations is the key issue of the future of Europe. Europe needs small nations as much as we need Europe. Because the strength of the European Union does not lie in its size - the strength of Europe comes from its diversity.

Our task here at the coast of the Baltic Sea is to produce and keep this diversity. The world has changed and the new changes are taking place faster and faster. There is nothing new in this - as long as it is taken as a philosophical truth or as a subject for academic discussions. But to draw any practical conclusions about oneself from this truth, to understand that it also means a more intensive contribution of work - it does not transfer easily into the everyday activities of people. We are lazy in our nature, too lazy to grab new possibilities and turn them in our favour. We do exploit the new achievements of technology, but do not realise that they expand the general cultural horizon of humankind only quantitatively, not qualitatively. Gutenberg did not make the world happy and neither will the Internet. Because, what is a human being? A human being is someone who processes chaos into structured information. But Internet has increased the movement of information explosively. It means that it is sawing the branch from under itself, because the chaos has increased. The world has not become more ethical. This work is still ahead of us. And it will be ahead of us. And what I see here is a challenge to small states whose politics have to be ethical in order to succeed in the modern world.

The ethical imperative of the European Union is in the fact that the common denominator on its diverse cultural palette consists of common values of democracy, one common goal, but every state will find its own way to achieve these goals and principles. It is not an issue faced by small states only. The big ones are also obliged to think about the development of Europe and offer future scenarios. Not every single idea can find application in the real world. Some initiatives have to remain academic excurses. This is how I understand the eurofederalism of Joschka Fischer, the Foreign Minister of Germany. He chose the Humboldt University in Berlin the place where he presented his ideas. And what could be a better place for presentation of new visions, that could be applied after a generation or two? We will move forward only when the conducted experiment acquires a realistic shape after coming in contact with the dimensions of reality. This is the shortcoming as well as the advantage of academic freedom that real politics do not have. Politicians also taste academic enjoyment on these rare occasions when they manage to express their experimental thoughts in front of an academic auditorium. This applies to me and certainly also to Joschka Fischer. You all know the standpoint of the Republic of Estonia: the internal reforms of the European Union have to take place parallel with the expansion of the European Union and not on account of the expansion. New members of the European Union have to be accepted on the basis of the objective criteria of the states and not on the basis of political preferences. We remain true to the decisions of the summit in Helsinki and expect the same loyalty from the others. And most of all we are grateful to the Republic of Finland who has shown with its words and its deeds the amount of ethical capital a small state can bring to our common Europe.

In conclusion: the role of small states is to be the binder that one may not notice from a distance, but without which the human culture in its entire diversity would become anaemic: from politics to environmental protection. There have been times of repercussion in the development of Europe when small states were ''run over''. And there have been more successful times - when the right of smaller ones to life and self-determination was also acknowledged.

I would like to end with the conclusion that the need to preserve cultural diversity is a global problem that is as topical as the threats associated with the warming climate in environmental protection, the need to avoid nuclear war, the problems caused by over-population in developing countries, etc. Acknowledging of the problem, however, is something that the small states have to do themselves. So let us get to our work, my dear Finnish friends and academic colleagues.

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