Your Excellency, President Milan Kučan,
Dear Mrs Kučan,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Our state visit to the Republic of Slovenia has lasted for two days, and we have enjoyed every minute of it. Discussions with you, Mr President, have given us an opportunity to compare the situation and attitudes in our countries, to design mutually important steps for the near future. In the numerous meetings Estonia has gratefully experienced Slovenia's sincere disposition, your friendliness and open-heartedness.

I want to assure you that Estonia, too, has strong friendly feelings towards your country. With great attention and interest we follow your wise and confident politics. The proclamation of independence by Slovenia in 1991 was highly characteristic of the current processes in Europe; it was based on popular will expressed in a plebiscite. Independent Slovenia has won universal respect with its stability and consistency.

We know that democracy can only be simple as an idea. In actual life democracy is far more complicated. Your success, the place you have gained in Europe and in the world today, nevertheless prove that living in a democracy is the only human way of living.

I would like to share with you, Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, my feelings about another matter of principle. Slovenia as we see it in May 1997 gives me the courage and the right to speak of the greatness of smallness.

It may have been a political joke, but we were told here that when Slovenia declared herself independent six years ago somewhere in the high corridors of Europe a sigh had been heard: ''But it's ever so small.'' And scepticism: isn't it too small to be independent? You will realize that a remark like that relates to us as well, since we too come from a small country. To be sure, when nature lovers, the greens, have the floor we hear cries to the effect that small is beautiful. In politics, something small sometimes seems to be just a nuisance. This presents one of the basic issues of political philosophy at the turn of the century. The development tracks of the 21st century will largely depend on whether the world is able to respect its own polyphony, whether it can value that polyphony and love it. Lately there have been recurrent discussions around the hazards of monocentricity and around the need to recognize polycentricity. If so, one of such centres must be seen in the community of small states.

In order to maintain the european mosaic, we must, paradoxically, integrate! Indeed we can only speak of integration if the mosaic is preserved, otherwise we would speak of cultural destruction or assimilation. As we all know, without our own states our peoples have no future. At the same time we must recognize that our states do not have a future outside of unions of states. The nations in today's world generally face the two forces majeures – the world becoming increasingly mosaic on the one hand, and processes of integration on the other – and our task is to keep these two tendencies in balance.

True enough, our numbers and capacities are smaller. But it is we, small nations, small peoples, that give the world its diversity and variegation. Just give a little thought to the world's genetic resources, and it becomes obvious that the role of the small ones has to be carefully kept an eye on. Or, returning to a more ancient expression: we have not been created into this world for nothing.

The political scheme of things for the end of the century is ousting empires and totalitarianism. From the map, that is. In the frame of mind they still go on dwelling. So we must ask over again: just how small is small? What kind of country is s mall?

It is time to acknowledge the greatness of smallness. To acknowledge it in principle, in a political philosophy. And to acknowledge it in political practice, so as to open the way for integration into European and universal structures, into the European Union and NATO. And when we hear a sham apprehensive question like isn't it too much rushing at things, the counter-question also implying an answer is: haven't we already lost too much time, hasn't the natural integrity of Europe been cloven long enough already?

At the same time it is extremely important that all aspirants to the European Union and NATO should sense mutual solidarity, that the steps they take should be amply transparent, that the advancement of any one of them should serve as a natural and logical springboard for the others. If there has been anything at all for Europe to learn from this century, for sure it is the wisdom that the security and wellbeing of this fragile continent can only be forged if we have our mind on all Europe, on Europe as a whole.

The security of any particular, isolated corner of Europe is sheer illusion. A crisis in one or another European region is a crisis of the entire Europe.

It is easy for me to speak about it to you, my dear friends because I know you will understand me. History and geography – geopolitics, if you like – have made us experience plenty of similar situations and problems. Estonia has been called THE LAND OF WINDS: so exposed have we been to cross winds of the world.

And your position, too, is at Europe's crossroads. But, having maintained our language and our culture, we both have made ourselves conscious of our identity and have managed to maintain that. Through a lot of tribulations. Braving the big ones' enmity for, or at least indifference to, small and singular.

On the eve of a new century, on the eve of a new millennium we can look to the future very hopefully.
Ladies and gentlemen, about a dozen years ago I also savoured hope in Slovenia. The Slovenian PEN-Club, which I had the pleasure to visit again yesterday, had on that occasion invited writers to Lake Bled to speak about George Orwell. Just as Orwell, we too had woven allegory into our texts, and behind it was an understanding that the irrational world could not continue endlessly. Our texts, our hints, our glances carried a message of hope and mutual support - and lo, here we are today, in a world that has changed already.

I am pleased that our state visit enabled my wife to go to that wonderful little lake. Among other things, for Estonians that place is important for the fact that a great son of our people, the chessplayer Paul Keres, played one of his most exquisite tournaments at Bled - even though he didn’t win it.

Wishes made under the chimes of the church in Bled are said to be always granted. I don't know what Helle Meri wished for in Bled. Here, in Ljubljana, allow me to raise my glass and express my wife's and my own best wishes to Slovenia.

May your remarkable progress continue, may you always prosper and flourish.

Mr President, I wish you and Mrs Kučan success and happiness.

To Slovenia!
To your health, Mr President and Mrs Kučan!

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