Estonia - Touch Stone of Future Europe


Dear Mr Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yesterday a new book by President Mauno Koivisto, his "Makers of History", was first on sale in Helsinki, our mutual nearest capital. Former President of Finland recalls Paris in November 1990, days so dramatic also to me, and he recalls it with the quiet Nordic humour common to Finns and Estonians. Just before the signing of the Charta Gorbachev of the Soviet Union approached him and asked for aid from Finland. The Soviet Union needed Finland's support since, as the Secretary General put it, the fascists were on the move. President Koivisto was suprised, he knew nothing about it. The day, I remember, was sunny and cool, a busy morning was spreading up all over Paris, police surveillance was strengthened only around the Arc de Trioumphe. "Not here," explained the Secretary General of the Communist Party in an irritated mood, "the fascists are in move in Estonia." Marshal Yazov, three kilograms of decorations hanging on his tunic, followed him as a glimmering shadow of the Secretary General.

This time the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had to leave the signing ceremony about a minute before the Secretary General arrived. It was a real breakthrough, a public relations breakthrough of the Baltic states into the French press, radio and television. Thanks to the Soviet ultimatum the French media discovered the Baltic States. Since November 1990 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have stayed in the sphere of interest of the French press and politicians. This interest culminated at the EU summit in Cannes this year and we have for the last 2-3 years been regarded not as "newborn states" but as the lost sons who are now returning to Europe from behind the Iron Curtain.

Skipping from the details to the whole, let us acknowledge there are two trends in our mutual world, seemingly contradictory.

On the one hand, our world is becoming more and more mosaic. Diversity of colours on the political map of the present-day world is the most convincing evidence of this development. The number of the member states in the United Nations Organization is approaching two hundred.

On the other hand, however, the processes of integration are just as powerful. The Earth is covered by organizations, alliances, unions of all kinds, containing innumerable overlaps.

I dare not waste the time of this audience to present appropriate examples.
I shall take these widely known general appearances as a starting point for our discussion, not counting the advantages and the disadvantages of the two trends.

I assert that in principle the two trends are force majeure, though they can be restrained in occasional instances and at the cost of great moral and perhaps even human losses.

It seems to me that our destiny, welfare, and probably even survival, depend on theability of the nations of our world to conform to these general trends of development, to balance them more or less and to check and violent forms of their manifestation.

The only constant factor in our turbulent world is geography. Today we can again talk about the Baltic dimension, the dimension uniting once again the people joined by the sorrows and joys of their history. However, the union is not complete. The triangle Stockholm-Helsinki-Tallinn is not perfect yet, and as to geometry, the most acute angle is here, in Stockholm. We in Tallinn, however, would prefer an equilangural triangle to unify us. Even though the information society is not based on geography, in politics, geography remains the only constant. And not only in politics: in daily contacts between people geography is the factor dividing and uniting us. As far as Estonia and Sweden are concerned, the sea will unite us in joy but also in sorrow, as it was about a year ago.

Nine and a half months have passed since Sweden and Finland, our closest neighbours, closest both in geography as well as in spirit, connected their future with the European Union. We are as pleased as you are that investments in Swedish industry have since increased as a result of it for about 40 per cent. At the same time we are both worried about the future of Europe.

For Estonia, Europe's future is determined by two entities: the European Union and NATO. These two organizations embody our aspirations: prosperity and security. And there can never be too much of them. Why should I stress that there is never too much of prosperity? Because one of the pleasant by-products of prosperity is stability. Thus, it can be said that stability is the intersection between the two all-European structures, the European Union and NATO .

Using metaphors, one can say: the European Union is to merge splinters of glass of different size, shape and colour into a harmonious stained glass work within one frame. To get the colours balanced, the European Union, while expanding itself, has to bear in mind the compatibility of those splinters of different colour. Ladies and gentlemen, I use the image to refer to the need of balanced and synchronous expansion of the EU in the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea directions. As Estonia and Sweden can be viewed as states of matching hues, Sweden should be interested in expanding the EU next not only by Malta in the Mediterranean region but also by Estonia in the Baltic Sea region. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen: we are ready. Estonia is ready.

When we talk about the new European architecture, we must start with its foundation which is - no doubt - security. A house without a strong foundation can be washed away by spring floods, where no merchant would open his shop and no craftsman would start with his workshop. Respecting Sweden's policy of neutrality, I have to say that as far as the Baltic countries are concerned, this option, bearing in mind our history and geography, is unfortunately out of the question. For us NATO is the only stable and safe guarantee for European security. But only as long as NATO sticks to the principles agreed upon in Washington in 1949. Should these principles - protection of democracy and freedom - be violated while opening up NATO, the organization would lose its significance fixed in the North Atlantic Treaty. You definitely noticed I was speaking of NATO opening and not of its expansion. It was deliberate: I wish to stress, NATO cannot remain a closed club and has to open for those Central and East European countries ready and willing to join the Alliance. The recent statements by Mr Yeltsin and Mr Krylov show clearly that our membership applications do not refer to our hysterical disposition but to a heightened sense of possible peril characterising small countries. I believe you will understand my concerns if I explain them with the help of the following hypothetical comparison: imagine a popular German party having as its basic electoral demand the reestablishment of the 3rd Reich within its 1942 borders. In modern Germany it seems impossible. In Russia, alas, it is possible. The reestablishment of Greater Russia in the Soviet Union borders of 1989 has been raised as a banner by several Russian parties taking most active part in parliamentary elections. Ladies and gentlemen, with the help of this comparison I clarify why the opening of NATO has become such a burning issue for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. At the same time it must be recognized that our wish for NATO membership is not only within our own interest - it offers Russia a stable and secure western border and the West a permanent establishment of our commonly shared principles and values on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea.

At the threshold of the 21st century, the world - due to advances in transportation, the media and the emerging information society - is shrinking at an accelerating rate. No one of us can remain untouched by global developments or global cataclysms (let us hope we can avoid the latter). Estonia is not isolated from events in Russia, nor is Sweden from events in Estonia. At the same time, the world presented by the media is deceitful: in our cosy and nice homes the wars we follow on TV are armchair wars, not real ones. And these armchair wars reach us with distorted magnification: the thousands who perish in Africa are given the same coverage as five people injured in Europe or North America. The statements made last week by the Russian president, who probably has not read the North Atlantic Treaty and is not aware of NATO's defence character, and who probably has not had a closer look at a map of Scandinavia to discover that at the Pasvikelva River NATO already borders with Russia, could seem to you unreal, as the pre-election jitters. For us these statements are filled with real content, with the tears and blood of those millions who perished in GULAG. It refers to our fear for tomorrow, for our daily bread and for our very existence.

The TV spot of the Russian State Duma session with Vladimir Zhirinovski strangling a female deputy - at the time when in Beijing the Women's World Conference is being held - does not fit with the European world perception and one has to admit: the principles cherished and honoured by us are not valid in Russia, something is rotten in the Russian political parties. The resolution by the Russian State Duma to halt Russia's participation in the Partnership for Peace programme and President Yeltsin's regrettable performance at the press conference can be treated either as final chords of the Cold War or as the initial bars of the Cold Peace. Or can we call it the final chord of WW III? Under WW III please bear in mind the series of wars and conflicts initiated in August 1945 by Soviet troops invading Manchuria and followed by a chain of aggressions and invasions in Korea, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Saigon, Kabul, Nicaragua, it's quite a long chain.

We have to consider the possibility that Yeltsin's words were not meant for domestic consumption only, and even if they were, how can we speak of sprouting democracy in Russia when its people are fed with war threats in order to satisfy their political appetite? I hope Yeltsin's press conference can shake the West out of its naive lethargy where it has incapsulated believing the world to be new and beautiful.

We are living in a dangerous world.

As already mentioned, the modern world is more and more intertwined. In the modern interdependent world we should not ask what Europe can do for Estonia but what Estonia can do for Europe. As you can guess - the direct reference to Kennedy's inauguration speech is deliberate. Estonia has adopted as its motto: Trade, not aid. In our dynamic evolving economy we see signs that allow us to make this - at first sight pompous statement. From where do we derive this euphoric optimism? To give you an answer I must turn to natural sciences: the hearts of small animals beat more rapidly, their metabolism as well as movements are quicker. This simile could show that Estonia is ready for quick changes, we have already shown you that we can have quicker changes than anywhere in the world, changes that are to be the greatest in the history of humanity since the invention of the printing press: namely, a transition to an information society. In such a revolutionary change neither the size of the Estonian territory nor population is an obstacle, it rather is an advantage. Small countries can do things that cannot be done by bigger countries.

This is not the only thing Estonia can offer Europe. Small countries have one trait great powers seem to lack - a keener threat-perception. And the threat we perceive is appeasement: the demands of an agressive state are met in the hope of taming it. And we all know the results of the last similar attempt.

Referring to the words of one of my German friends, Karl Feldmeyer: Estonia is Europe's litmus test. We are successfully passing the economical test and hope that we will manage to survive the security test, too. Of course, we are not particularly happy to become a touchstone of the European security system, yet there is no doubt: Russia's behaviour towards Estonia and other Baltic states is a major indicator showing Russia's progress or regress.

Ladies and gentlemen, Estonia will not wish to limit its role to that of a litmus test, we would be glad to be the catalyst for new all-European security system. Please do not take these words as mania grandiosa of a small state, our aspirations proceed from our historical memory, from our worry for the future of Europe, from our wish that Europe should survive.

Thank you

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