Your Excellency,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour and a great pleasure to be your guest here today. Allow me to begin by speaking about literature -- a domain in which I was most at home before becoming engulfed by Estonian politics.

Twenty-five years ago our literary journal Looming published verse by your great poet Octavio Paz. When that publication was shown to Octavio Paz himself, he repeatedly reiterated, like a magic formula, a line from the Estonian translation of one of his poems, Viento entero/The Whole Wind/. The poem had been translated by one of the most distinguished authors in modern Estonian poetry, my good friend Jaan Kaplinski, and that line ran in Estonian as follows: Alati on olevik (El presente es perpetuo / The present is perpetual/). It is the opening line of the poem Viento entero, and it is repeatedly used as a confirmation and an incantation throughout the whole poem.

I know that a more pragmatic philosophical approach exists, to the effect that there is no present at all, that it momentarily crumbles in our hands into the past. I must admit I prefer the way Octavio Paz and Jaan Kaplinski have reasoned.

As an Estonian, as the President of the Republic of Estonia I am happy that the present of my country is the present of a country which has regained its independence after half a century of occupation.

The end of occupation and the recovery of independent statehood is not a mere change of costumes or sets. It is a lengthy process demanding effort and time, demanding changes within oneself and in one's relations with the world.

Changes that include reestablishing the true position of my country in the world community. In this connection, there has been a lot of discussion about the integration of Estonia and other Central European countries into Europe. We have belonged in Europe for more than 700 years already, we can, of course, go even further back, how could we possibly integrate into an entity where we have essentially established ourselves over the centuries?

When one walks about the Old Town of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one can feel Europeanness radiating from the architecture, from every medieval house and every church steeple. Not only was Tallinn one of the most notable Hanseatic cities: in the present state of affairs it is one of the best preserved cities of the whole merchant league. The poetry of stone perpetuates history.

As for society, it is perpetuated and maintained through the legal system. Ladies and gentlemen, Estonia has been part of the Roman-Germanic legal system for over 700 years. This legal basis is even more important than well-preserved Gothic style or Classicism. This legal basis, my friends, is a nursery where everything else springs up; it is the prerequisite, the basis and the very guarantor of the survival, the development and the success of our modern state.

So we cannot speak about integration into Europe. What we can speak about is integration into World wide security and economic structures. It is not so much an economic or security issue as it is a matter of political judgment.

When we speak of integration with the world community structures, we have first and foremost organisations like the European Union and NATO in mind. The hallmark of the EU is prosperity, and that of NATO is security. What they have in common is stability. Stability is the intersection of the EU and NATO. In view of this mathematical image, Estonia's aim is obvious: entrance into both NATO and the EU, which should happen as early as possible and as late as necessary.

Such changes are also reflected by my state visit to your country, which has always been present in the minds of Estonians as a unique cultural treasury, a little mysterious and immeasurably rich, infinitely full of surprises.

As I stand in obvious awe of your history and culture, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of telling you that a number of other Mexican poets besides Octavio Paz have been translated into Estonian;

that Estonian secondary school students can find specimens of Mexican poetry in their world literature textbooks;

that an impressive selection of Mexican short stories and several novels have been published in Estonian;

that the late Estonian literary critic Ivar Ivask, who lived in emigration away from Estonia and whose academic career peaked in a professorship at the University of Oklahoma, corresponded with Mexican writers and often reviewed their work in his renowned journal World Literature Today;

that the old Tartu University now again admits students majoring in Spanish.

You can see, Ladies and Gentlemen, that Estonia is looking up to you across the seas and continents, and is doing so with a keen interest and desire to go deep into your heritage.

This also makes a good basis for the enhancement of our relations in more mundane and practical spheres of life which are inseparable from our everyday issues.

Even after the work done today it is evident that we have numerous prospects for economic ties and that both parties want to use these possibilities.

We have signed today a basic agreement of technical co-operation, an agreement which already uses the basis I mentioned before. This is the start, this is that present which means also a future. We are strengthening the links between two countries, and may-be, who knows, two regions, geographically far away from each other and at the same time, close in spirit, close in the desire of unity.

"El presente es perpetuo", and this "presente" is also our future. A future that promises the creation of a harmonious pattern, an ideal which, in spite of all the anxieties of the outgoing twentieth century, we perpetually keep before our eyes.

Alati on olevik. El presente es perpetuo.
The present is perpetual.
And the future is also perpetual.

Excellency,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of my wife and myself, on behalf of the Estonian delegation I thank you for letting us share Mexico with you.

I wish you success and happiness and invite you to raise our glasses to the greater glory of the United States of Mexico and its President.

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