Your Excellency, Mr. President of the Republic of Poland,
Dear Mrs. Jolanta Kwaśniewska,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

My dear friend, your state visit to Estonia is a great joy to me. This feeling is shared by all the Estonian people. I know you are aware of the depth and sincerity of our feelings: you are visiting a state that has through the ages been very close to the Republic of Poland. To confirm this, allow me please to quote the words of Jüri Uluots, said seventy years ago, on the Anniversary of the Polish Constitution, on May 14, 1930: “Estonia and Poland, Poland and Estonia are friends by the will of nature, mutual shareholders and mutually responsible for the organization of the national life of each other’s country. Thus it has been and thus it is.”

Indeed it should make us wonder that this conviction, worded so long ago, rings so true even today. Or should we say that today this old truth sounds even more imperative?

What was this conviction based on at the time?

Mostly, it was based on our historical experience. Poland was one of the great powers of Europe that Estonia has through the ages had very close political, economic and cultural relations with. Let me bring just two of the numerous examples. During the struggles of the Counter Reformation, when Southern Estonia was under the Polish crown – and this is why our university town Tartu or Dorpat still uses the Polish colours as its town flag –, the Polish Jesuits established a translation institute in Tartu in order to spread the written Estonian more widely. Are we able to appreciate this not only as step of great symbolic value, but also as a practical example to the European Union of today? Another illustration: both Estonia and Poland were forced to resort to arms in order to protect their right of self-determination against the totalitarian regime that would not recognise this sacred right that of every nation. Is it not symbolic, once more, that on June 4, 1919, our fronts were joined near Jekabpils – Jakobstadt, and that the soldiers of the Estonian 1st Cavalry Regiment and the Polish 16th Ulan Regiment joined hands there?

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, in the evening of August 23, 1999, Molotov ja Ribbentrop could hardly imagine that their signatures under the plan for dividing Europe would yield quite the opposite result, that this criminal pact would be their own undoing, that it would lead to the disintegration of the totalitarian states and the union of the democratic Europe. It is true that the Estonians and the Poles have had to pay a higher price for the restoration of their independence and democracy than most of the European nations. Here, it is appropriate to remember that the way for signing the pact was paved by declaring both the Estonians and the Poles “hostile nations” to the former Soviet empire, which meant mass arrests and executions: in this bloodshed, 79% of the Poles on the Soviets’ list were shot, and the per cent of the murdered Estonians was even higher. For an Estonian, Katyn is a word to which he at once adds Norilsk, Vorkuta, Kolyma and Magadan. It is a pity that in the minds of our Western partners, these names mean just new markets and bear no resemblance to Auschwitz.

Professor Uluots, whom I quoted before, had no way of knowing this. He would have been glad to see that Poland has become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, that both Estonia and Poland are EU-candidates and that Estonia will do everything in her power to join NATO. And first of all, this predecessor of mine would have been glad to learn that both Germany and Russia have turned their backs to totalitarianism, and that Germany has become an important factor of the stability and security of the EU.

Mr. President, we have both had the blessing to witness the renaissance of Europe. Democratic Europe has returned to the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. When I visited Poland last year, I said that we were situated on the same political meridian. This places us both under the obligation to look into the future, to see far beyond the expiry of our powers of office, in order to answer the question: what are our rights and responsibilities in the expanding Europe and to our immediate neighbours?

It is our common wish to see a successful and democratic Eastern Europe east of us. Our accession to the European Union and NATO must acquire such form and content as to support the aspirations of Russia, Byelorussia, and Ukraine towards democracy; thus it should be based on our experience in deepening our economic and cultural relations with Eastern Europe. The experience of Estonia and Poland is part of the EU policy towards the East.

Secondly. The Baltic Sea is the axis of our lives. It serves as a foundation to the Northern Dimension of the European Union initiated by the Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, where all the countries of Central Europe have to make their contribution. I am glad to admit that Estonia has managed to keep the economic and cultural relations, especially those with the region of St. Petersburg, apart from politics.

Thirdly. It is our common interest that the enlargement of the European Union should not be hindered by the events on the Balkans. This should be repeated over and over again. These days, history moves faster than politics, and politics in its turn changes faster than the institutions of Europe. The momentum and will of the European enlargement currently show a tendency of retardation. The costs of the enlargement have been tendentiously shifted to the foreground and largely overestimated, whereas underrating the benefits of enlargement that would many times outweigh the costs in temporal perspective. I am not really worried about Estonia who has quite successfully swallowed the heap of eighty thousand pages of rules and regulations – not the most convincing invitation to free market economy, I must confess. I should rather say that the enlargement strategy of the European Union calls for modernisation. It is first and foremost the political, strategic and moral considerations that are the motive force of the enlargement, and this is also what we should say out loud. The greatest value, the mission and the role of a small country like Estonia – both in Europe and in the world at large – may indeed be that she speaks her mind. Estonia does not want to be the enfant terrible. Estonia wants to be Estonia. And Poland wants to be Poland.

Mr. President,
Mrs. Kwaśniewska,

I wish to thank you in the name of my people for having honoured with your presence the service dedicated to our turbulent past – and I can assure you and the people of Poland that our friendship, our co-operation and our common future are unswerving.

Estonia salutes Poland!

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