Mr Chairman of the Riigikogu,
Excellencies,
Dear Participants in the Conference,

I read the designation of today's conference and was again overwhelmed by the idea which you must have heard from my lips to satiety: Estonians are among the most sessile peoples of Europe, Estonia is not on its way to anywhere; rather, it is Europe that after its bids for self-identity is returning to Estonia. And I am glad to welcome the representatives of sundry peoples here today who have entered upon this journey in the physical sense of the word as well.

But of course Europe has been changing all the time, and hopefully it will keep changing without end. And now, right before the Luxembourg summit, a major turning point is palpably ahead. While the previous enlargements of the European Union have been more like an internal affair of Europe, the oncoming enlargement is the first to be viewed against a global background. Global economic challenges lie behind both the readiness to bear the enlargement expenses and the transition to a common currency. At the same time, however, all the EU member countries have declared that the European Union is something more fundamental than just the free traffic of goods or a common agricultural policy.

An existential turning point in the European Union - in all of Europe - is so obvious that even applicant countries are approached for help, by asking them, ''And what kind of a European Union do you desire?''

As the head of state of Estonia I have spoken about the Estonian point of view at a number of places in Europe this autumn. I have stressed that no one is more interested in the settling of institutional questions than the hopeful new member states. I have suggested that the most likely keyword to characterize an enlarged and still more diverse Europe could be flexibility, in place of the quite recent subsidiarity. And of course I have boasted about how well qualified Estonia is for Europe; that, in my opinion, is not only based on growth figures but also on our ability to abide by the Constitution.

Today I can leave all these topics in your hands here. But I hope that the designation ''Estonia on its way to a changing Europe'' will primarily lead to defining the need for Estonia to change itself. Because the debate on Europe in Estonia is in fact still in its infancy, both on the side of noes and on that of ayes.

On the one hand, the opponents' argument, ''no sooner have we escaped one union than we are already rushing into another'', is primitive. The founders of the European Union had set out to work with a view to a long-term stability of Western Europe, along with social and economic development. Who would dare to say that Central Europe - all the applicant countries - today might need it to a smaller degree or that we have already got it?

On the other hand, it is to be feared that many an ardent supporter of joining the European Union and of a free market economy have but a vague idea of the fact that a free market economy is nonetheless regulated, as befits a civil society. Free trade can be made effective by means of conforming to fixed rules, and the conforming to those rules can be made effective by means of control. This is precisely what must distinguish the European Union from ''the Wild West or East'', where force ruled. It becomes very clear that this conception has not really begun yet to take root in Estonia when one reads the assessment given in ''Agenda 2000'' to the work of customs and other inspectorates. But certainly it pays to read all of the Agenda.

And at this conference it pays to keep one's ears sharp and to ask a lot of questions.

God speed you!

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