Mr. President,
Dear Mrs. Kučan,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are all glad to welcome you, Mr. President and Mrs. Kučan, and the whole Slovenian delegation, here in the House of the Brotherhood of Blackheads today.

Our countries have parallel courses of development, and are advancing side by side. The identity of the Slovenians and the Estonians was the powerful substance that assumed a political form and broke through in as restored sovereignty.

Today, Estonia is Estonia and Slovenia is Slovenia, and nobody has to look too hard for us on the map of the world. Nobody confuses Estonia with Iceland or Slovenia with Slovakia any longer.

And yet, we stand at the beginning again. Both Slovenia and Estonia consider full membership of the European Union and NATO a foreign policy priority. From the political classics of Europe, we know the sentence that foreign policy is the extension of each country's domestic policy, then let me remind you here at the dinner table that those classics were born in great countries and spoiled by the serene existence of big nations. This sentence does not pertain to small countries, which Estonia and Slovenia undoubtedly are. For small countries, the foreign policy is simply and brutally determined by Hamlet's question: to be or not to be.

It is merrier to walk this gloomy path if there are two of us, and even merrier if there are more than two. This is the source of the solidarity and spiritual affinity between Estonia and Slovenia, and hurrying ahead, this is also the reason why I consider the role of small countries in the European Union much graver than it is usually thought to be. Hence, our sincere interest in following the accession negotiations of Slovenia in Brussels. We keep our fingers crossed for you, just as you keep your fingers crossed - or whatever you do in Slovenia - for Estonia. And still, I would like to remind you - negotiations do not only mean skilful negotiators, they also mean homework. First and foremost, the European Union is looking for quality. The quality of everyday life. The quality of democracy. The quality of security and social stability. The quality of State and the State administrations. This can not be achieved by bandying words, but by daily routine work. In this respect, Estonia still has a lot of work to do, and I guess that so has Slovenia. The working visits of our ministers, the contacts of our MP-s, and finally your State visit, dear President Kučan, are not a protocolic minuet that neither of us has the time or the inclination to dance, but important opportunities to support each other in this homework and to learn quickly from each other's experience.

As for the enlargement of NATO, this requires different logic and different language. After the collapse of totalitarianism in Europe, NATO has assumed a new role. A role of ensuring democratic development, stability and security of future. Every State, great or small, has the right to make its own choice of security structures. No country is too small or too distant to belong to NATO. Both Slovenia and Estonia have taken a sovereign decision to accede to NATO. We will do everything in our power that the Washington Summit in April next year could bring NATO closer both to Estonia and Slovenia. The enlargement process that began last year in Madrid must continue convincingly in Washington. I am pleased to see that several observers have employed our long-standing vision that, besides the East-West direction, NATO should also retain balance in the enlargement in the North-South direction. Indeed balance is the art of politics. And openness to all sides of the world is the phenomenon of Europe.

And finally, let me tell you what a joy it is that both our home countries are small, and that we both are Presidents of small countries. I would like to stress this over and over, because in Estonia - I do not know about Slovenia - there always those who doubt and those who despair, driven by strange stereotypes of thinking. ''O yes, we could do this, if only we were not so small,'' is what they usually say. It is our task to explain them that small is beautiful, that small is skilful, that small is quick to learn and to use what he has learned. A small country can much more quickly respond to outside changes, a small country can much more dynamically reform itself and its economy, and what is most important, to alter its way of thinking. And if our quality is sound, if our positions are founded on principles that we shall not forsake, it will be embarrassing for the world to ignore us. Small countries outnumber the great powers of the world - and not only by their actual number, but also by population. This is a great value. What should the mission of small countries be - in Europe and in the world? In the European Union and in other co-operation structures, small countries can add to the sense of identity, and have a balancing influence in relations between big countries. We already discussed this in Ljubljana, and I also discussed this with Janez Podobnik in Kadriorg. We also discussed this today - and this has special importance today, when the world has become more severe, more pragmatic and more uncertain.

Mr. President,

I remember your country, and even the underground sites of Slovenia, I remember three mountain peaks and the Adriatic sun, but above all the strangely familiar feeling that overwhelmed our whole delegation during the State visit to Slovenia. I wish that your visit to Estonia, now at the beginning of winter, would leave just as warm memory into the hearts of you and Mrs. Kučan. Now, I am extending my right hand to raise the glass to the health of the people and State of Slovenia, the President of Slovenia and Mrs. Kučan!

Please raise all glasses to the honour of Slovenia!

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