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President of the Republic on the Occasion of Receiving the Coudenhove-Kalergi Europe Award in the Town Hall of Tallinn
11.09.1996

Mr Prime Minister,
Mr President of the Coudenhove-Kalergi Foundation,
Mr President of the Paneuropean Movement,
Mr Ex-Foreign Minister of Denmark, My Good Friend,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In response to what has already been said here and to express my gratitude for the words of recognition pronounced in favour of Estonia and myself, I would like to speak about the most compelling things I have on my mind.

The world of history, where the leading characters are countries and peoples, is a world of dwarfs and giants. The differences in weight between those characters are ten-fold, hundred-fold, thousand- fold.

However, there is also the world of people, where all of us are players, as many as we are -- round about six billion. In this world such weight differences do not exist. If the winners of the Coudenhove-Kalergi Europe Award assembled for a group photo and if Chancellor Kohl then accidentally trod on my toe, it would hurt a little I think, but I would certainly not cease to exist because of that. But if there is pushing in the other group photo - on the political map of the world -, a small country like Estonia may easily get trampled into nothingness. Estonia knows it, a lot of other small countries know it.

Yet the world of history is changing. We have to admit, in spite of all troubles and threats, that it is becoming more human. The right of the stronger is absorbing more and more elements of justice. And although an Estonian proverb advises not to rejoice before the evening, which is the same as not to count your chickens before they are hatched, realism does not necessarily exclude optimism. Coudenhove-Kalergi's noble principles are, as far as possible, becoming reality. In a way that is difficult to define but still discernible, the consolidation of human rights within democracies is being transformed into a little more justice than there used to be between states. States draw their life from the people living and acting there. And people are gradually coming to realize that the spiritual and material wealth of a country is not at all proportional to is area: rather, it nowadays already tends to be inversely proportional to the anachronistic drive to expand. Examples can be found near by and far away. The real wealth of the world is in its diversity, and the wealth of its component parts depends on their capability to partake of that diversity, to embrace it without capturing it.

Please do not misunderstand me here. It is obvious that the French or Italian or Russian culture contains more beyond compare than, say, the Estonian or Slovenian culture. A person's power of containing culture, on the other hand, is more or less a constant. Just how much of it anyone can put to use is a different matter. But in a Europe uniting voluntarily - not being united by force - this freedom of use, this freedom of making an individual choice, is larger than ever before.

And the freedom of choice is the crown of life.

Of course this new and better world, the new and better continent of ours that Coudenhove-Kalergi dreamed about and for which he also worked so effectively in practice, is not ready yet. And I hope there will never be such a terrible moment when it should be declared ready for good. After that it would only remain to wait for its end. So we are moving towards a better future, but fortunately the future has not got a gate like paradise has. Movement alone is what preserves us.

Estonia is moving too, and has done so quite rapidly over the past years, though not without pain. But let us not forget, or at least let us recall from time to time, that these great pains and worries of that forward march of ours are still but peacetime pains and peacetime worries, and may our main worry still be that they should not again be solved by military means.

As we know, Coudenhove-Kalergi's activities gathered momentum precisely at a time when Europe resounded with the desperate slogan: Never more a war! In those days the budding idea of a union failed to restrain Europe from rolling towards another catastrophe. But through transformation, expansion, materialization to an unprecedented extent, at least for Western Europe the same ideology has by now secured a prosperous age of peace nearly three times as long as that between the two world wars.

Estonia, like all Central Europe, expects the same guarantees of peace and prosperity to expand to the north-east, the east and the south-east, to the north and the south. For this to happen as early as possible, for the ongoing development not to jam - to the common detriment of both the West and the East -, Estonia has done what it could. And she has shown that she means to stick at it. Apparently this is the main reason why I am making this speech of thanks before you here.

The previous speakers have already made my thanksgiving duty easier for me by pointing out that the award winner is not only I but Estonia, the country and the people as well. Upon my word, it is not only for sham modesty that I accept this very obvious truth. It is not a prize winner's mandatory claptrap. If indeed I have had some success in defending and explicating the common interests of Estonia, the Baltic states and Europe, it is, without doubt, only because I have fought my way feeling the backing of the Estonian people. My success has been a fraction of the great success of the Estonian country and people.

Let neither me nor my country be dazzled by the success. Estonia is very small. As a small country and due to her historical experience she has a particularly keen sensitivity to danger. Estonia knows she cannot afford any foreign policy mistakes, nor domestic policy mistakes, for that matter, since the latter are easily transmuted into the former. A great power, a big nation can hardly make such a colossal mistake as would jeopardize its existence. But a small country like Estonia can easily make a mistake that will remain its last. In the long run the obligatory vigilance may of course make one nervous, but we cannot afford even being nervous. We have to be calm, friendly, resolute. All the time. It is a recommendation which is easier to give than to follow.

As you see, I am not able to move off from problems of small countries, a topic ever so close to me. However, I have no intention to regard the small-country status as some kind of curse. I will not cease to stress the other side of the coin: a small country may have existential concerns unknown to a great power, but it has a great many companions in fortune and misfortune. Moreover, small countries form an overwhelming majority among the countries of the world. In fact the world cannot exist without small countries; small countries are like mortar binding bigger blocks together to make a smooth wall. Take a look at old Tallinn's limestone buildings, walls and towers. With time the mortar between the stones has consolidated to become harder than the stones are.

Small countries are an inseparable part of the political architecture of Europe and the whole world. We want to erect a building that would be safe to live in and behind. And safety, security is a value representing the primary common interest of all countries, more especially of all people. If anything, this is the core of Coudenhove- Kalergi's ideas.

I hope you do not mind if on these grounds I reiterate Estonia's foreign policy priorities or, to be more exact, Estonia's rights and duties.

First: Membership in the European Union is Estonia's highest priority.

I can assure my fellow countrymen that we are determined to defend Estonia's interests effectively and consistently in Brussels; that Estonia will use the opportunities opening up through integration to the full extent; and that we will contribute to the enhancement of the European integration process as best we can.

Another priority is Estonia's integration with European security structures in a way which will preclude the emergence of a security vacuum; quite the opposite: which will reinforce stability and goodneighbourly relations in our region, on the narrower scale, and in Europe, on a wider scale.

Along with these rights we also assume definite responsibilities: Estonia has to learn to behave as a state; Estonia has to proceed from her constitution and guarantee a democratic government, a democratic and free press and a free economy. We have gone a remarkable way over this short period of time, but I would be insincere if I did not admit that we still had a long way to go.

To end with, I would like to add that Estonia is by no means a newcomer to the process of a united Europe. Estonia's voice was already fairly audible in the chorus of Coudenhove-Kalergi's distinguished followers as early as the Twenties-Thirties. Since 1924 a personal contact had been established between Coudenhove- Kalergi and Kaarel Pusta, the Estonian Ambassador to Paris, who became an influential figure of the Paneuropean movement. Pusta has written about it in several books and a number of articles. His legacy is now again being published in Estonia thanks to the restored independence, and publications are sure to continue. Not without reason so; just listen what this colleague and follower of Coudenhove-Kalergi's has written:

''Estonia and other countries born of the war are only possible in a Europe settled in peace, strong and unanimous. Anything that consolidates solidarity in Europe will also strengthen our national self-existence. By supporting the Pan-European Union we will work for our independence, our economic well-being, and for the maintenance of international culture.'' (Postimees, August 16, 1929)

This is what Kaarel Pusta wrote 67 years ago. This is also the way we write and think today. Just that now, in a Europe iridescent with an unheard-of number of small countries and having an unprecedented wealth of good prospects for cooperation, we can also formulate the reverse of this idea: anything that strengthens Estonia's self-existence, anything that strengthens the self-existence of any other democratic small state of Europe will consolidate Europe.

A political idea that has stood the test of time and which is still valid after so many decades is worth holding fast to it. This, as a matter of fact, is the highest recognition we can give to the life's work of Coudenhove-Kalergi.

Thank you.

 

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