Dear Mr. President Constantinos Stephanopoulos,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Greece is the cradle of the European culture. Here in Greece we can feel the flap of the wings of history. But as well as the past, we have during this state visit sensed the strong pulse of the modern Greece, we have seen Greece as the leading country of the Balkans, as a member of the European Union and also a country that be-longs to NATO.

The ties between Estonia and Greece go back a long time. And thus there is even more reason to bring them to the full swing and extent that would be worthy of our two countries.

My Ladies and Gentlemen,

The history of the Northern Dimension of Europe is very old. The Greek Pytheas was the godfather of the Baltic Sea, as it was his works that Tacitus drew on when writing the words "Aestiorum gentes" 98 years after the birth of Christ. He was talking about us.

Now, 23 centuries after Pytheas, we have come to return the visit. This is like an answer to Pytheas, whose question was worded as follows by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy - "what are we waiting for, gathered in the market place? The barbarians are to arrive today."

Estonians the barbarians have indeed arrived, and symbolically, are also there on the market place. I am accompanied by a delegation of businessmen that will hopefully leave Greece with freshly signed contracts, pro-fitable both to Greece and to Estonia.

Mr. President, dear ladies and gentlemen, Estonia in the middle of accession negotiations with the European Union. Greece has been a member of the EU for long years already. It may seem to a casual observer that these two countries - an old member and a newcomer - do not have much in common. This is not the case. Estonia and Greece have a lot in common. Estonia and Greece are both maritime nations and we are both small countries. We are both also countries that are proud of their nation and of their past. This is the basis for co-operation that will connect us as Member States of the European Union.

The situation is the same with NATO and Estonia's aspiration to accede to NATO. We see the membership of NATO as an opportunity to join in the defence of our common security in Europe. Our geographical position on the Northern edge of Europe has not iso-lated us from your troubles in the South. No one can hide behind geography any lon-ger. We live in our common Europe and have to be ready to stand up for each other and together for our com-mon values.

My Ladies and Gentlemen,

The co-operation between Estonia and Greece is based on our common culture, com-mon European identity.

Coming to Greece, we have arrived at the sources of the European culture, the Euro-pean ethics.

My generation has received this Greek spirit already from our first textbooks at school "Signa romanorum graecorumque".

Even so, the European spirit has not saved us from cataclysms. Life of the Republic of Estonia as a European country was disrupted by a deal between totalitarian states in 1939. We were subjected to the experiment of to-ta-litarian systems and our normal development course was broken off for half a cen-tury. Classical education that we had deemed so important during our first pe-riod of independence was suppressed to the background.
By the last decade of this century the chariot of history rolled back to its right ruts. The Estonian people themselves rolled the chariot back. We had the support of the democratic world.
This obliges us today to look for the answer to the question: why?
Why did the twentieth century, a century of the highlights of human spirit in science and technology, a century of tremendous achievement, turn out to be a century of violence and inhuman suffering?
What should we have done differently? We have to know this, so we can ask: what shall we have to do differently in the twenty first century?
My ladies and gentlemen, we do not yet have a common and universally acceptable answer to these questions.
But we are increasingly aware of the truth that evil must be and can be con-fronted, we must not let evil grow powerful and make whole nations groan helplessly under it.
Europe has had to pay too dearly for its patience and naivete.
The Greek spirit, wisdom of centuries also says here that resolution has to be tied with democracy, a situation where every voice can be heard.
Two months ago, receiving the prize of the European of the Year in Paris as a great honour for me, I said that the key to the Europe's creativity lies in her di-ver-sity. I would like to repeat it again now together with the recognition that Europe has always lived on contrasts and that her strength is in her capability to unite these contrasts and derive strength from them.

This means determination, this means co-operation. It means co-operation between Greece and Estonia that despite the geographical distance between them - or maybe for this very reason, are countries that are very close to each other by nature. We feel better than many others the need to work together and help each other. Because we have sensed and sense even today the uncertainty of our world.

Mr. President,
My Ladies and Gentlemen,
on the eve of the new century it is appropriate to think of the past centuries.
This means - and means particularly - thinking about Greece.
This means facing boldly the challenges of today and tackling them. The wis-dom of centuries will have to help us. In no other place in Europe could we sense it so clearly as in your picturesque.

Thank you for your cordial reception.
Allow me to give on behalf of my wife Helle Meri and myself our most sincere wishes of success to you, Mr. President, and your wife. May happiness and success be your companions for ever.
Let us raise our glasses to this.
To the glory and prosperity of the Hellenic Republic.

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