ADDRESS AT THE OFFICIAL DINNER HOSTED IN HONOUR BY PRESIDENT MENEM OF ARGENTINA
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELANDAT THE OFFICIAL DINNER HOSTED IN HER HONOUR BY PRESIDENT MENEM OF ARGENTINA
Mr. President, Distinguished guests,
It is a great pleasure to be here in Argentina and to have the honour to be the first Irish President to pay an official visit to your beautiful country.
There is a long history of cordial and friendly relations between the peoples of our two countries. In fact, the first recorded Irish person in Argentina can be dated back to the year 1587. He was a Fr. Thomas Field, a Limerick born Jesuit who arrived here from Brazil. Thereafter, many Irish immigrants over the years found a home in your country.
Those immigrants were readily accepted in the community here from the outset. They, and their descendants, responded to this welcome by making a considerable and distinctive contribution to their new country. Admiral William Brown, founder of the Argentine Navy and a leading participant in the struggle for Argentine independence, is undoubtedly the one best remembered. Others, however, also played prominent roles in the development of Argentina's economy and its political, social and judicial institutions. An early settler from County Clare, Dr. Michael O'Gorman, is regarded as the founder of Argentina's public health system.
Today, some 300,000 people of Irish descent live in Argentina and are to be found in many walks of life. We, in Ireland, are proud of the part which they continue to play in Argentinean society and of the link which they provide between our two countries.
Our long-standing bilateral relations are being reinforced by co-operation in various multilateral fora. The successful conclusion of the GATT negotiations in which Argentina played a prominent part, promises to stimulate an expansion of international trade, to the benefit of all participants and to open up greater prospects for bilateral trade between our two countries. I will be speaking to leading Argentine business figures about these possibilities during my visit.
Ireland and Argentina share a strong common commitment to the development of the full potential of the United Nations as a framework for the promotion of international peace and stability founded on justice, observance of human rights and balanced and sustainable global economic progress. We both recognise the importance of the UN's role in facilitating the peaceful settlement of disputes and the negotiation of political structures which can accommodate the legitimate interests of all parties concerned and enjoy their confidence. The growing evidence of ethnic and inter-state conflict in recent years has greatly increased the scale and complexity of the UN's peace-keeping role. Argentina and Ireland have both played a full part in meeting the additional burden that this imposes on the international community through our substantial contributions to UN peace-keeping missions. Ireland has been involved in many of the major peace-keeping operations mounted by the UN over the past 35 years. Over the period of our involvement about 41,000 members of our Permanent Defence Forces have participated in UN missions. In recent years, members of our civilian police force have also served in UN peace-keeping operations.
Ireland and Argentina have both actively sought to stimulate discussion on the reform of the UN to equip it to address the changing circumstances and emerging challenges with which it is now confronted. You, Mr. President, have made a most valuable personal contribution to this debate with your innovative proposal for the establishment of a "White Helmets" force to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid. Ireland was pleased to be able to co-sponsor the resolution adopted on this issue at the most recent Session of the UN General Assembly.
Since our earliest days in the United Nations, Ireland has been active in promoting international arms control and disarmament. An Irish initiative provided the basis for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Ireland was the first country to ratify that Treaty. It is a particular pleasure therefore to welcome Argentina's recent accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons State. This is a very significant year for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whose initial 25-year span draws to a close. The Irish Government are strongly committed to securing the future of the Treaty at next month's NPT Conference.
We admire also the leading role which Argentina has played in moves to develop closer co-operation in its own region in Latin America. A founder member of the Rio Group, which has helped to underpin the consolidation of democracy on the continent, Argentina is, I know, an active and enthusiastic member of Mercosur, whose purpose is to establish a common market among its member countries. I am confident that Mercosur will benefit its participants.
The Mercosur initiative follows in the path so successfully traced in Europe by the European Union. The dynamic effect of economic integration and its beneficial political consequences are clearly illustrated by the experience of the Union, whose major founding aims included the promotion of peace and prosperity, objectives initially pursued through economic means. The European Union began with the establishment of a customs union which led to the creation of a common market. It has recently established a Common Foreign and Security Policy and is moving towards Economic and Monetary Union. In this evolving process, each successive step towards integration has strengthened the basis and increased the impetus for further development.
The European Union has served its member States, including Ireland, very well. The member States, by pooling their resources, have been able to achieve more, acting in concert, than they could have accomplished individually. As well as creating the conditions for greater prosperity, economic integration has increasingly fostered a wider sense of mutual interdependence, shared destiny and solidarity.
Overall, the European Union's success in reconciling old antagonisms has been a source of particular inspiration to Ireland in our efforts to promote political solution to the Northern Ireland problem.
There is now peace on the island of Ireland for the first time in a generation. With the achievement of peace, there is a unique opportunity to reach a new partnership between the two traditions in Ireland.
Agreement and consent are the essential keys to such a new accommodation. Last month, the Irish and British Governments issued their considered view of where agreement might be found in a collective talks process involving the two Governments and the Northern Ireland parties. The Framework for Agreement sets out the possible shape of an overall accommodation which, in the view of the two Governments, would give honourable expression to the rights and values of both traditions in Northern Ireland.
It is common ground between the two Governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland that any new accommodation must give expression to three sets of relationships: those within Northern Ireland, those between both parts of Ireland and those between Ireland and Britain. The Framework Document explores these different relationships.
I hope that we will see a process of discussion and negotiation get underway which will enable progress to be made towards a settlement, a settlement that will reflect the new ordering of our relationships, and that will promote healing and reconciliation.
In a wider sense, of course, there has been a new ordering of our relationships in the context of the European Union, and the changing Europe has given us all a new and stronger sense of community with the different traditions and nationalities among us.
The European Union has the potential to contribute to progress in other practical ways. By creating a common market on the island for the first time since partition, the Union has removed barriers to trade and linked the economic destinies of the people of Ireland, North and South. The increased economic integration which should follow will reinforce the efforts of the Irish and British Governments to promote better mutual understanding between the two traditions in Ireland.
At the European level, the success of the European integration process has left the Union uniquely placed to serve as a motor of development in the interests of all of the people of the continent. In the wider international context, the Union's capacity to contribute to economic progress and political stability throughout the world has been enhanced. I believe that Mercosur will be a source of economic strength in Latin America and that, in time, it will become a pole of attraction for other countries in the region.
The path that Mercosur takes and the eventual shape it assumes will, of course, be exclusively a matter for its own member countries to decide in the light of their own specific circumstances, needs and aspirations. Nevertheless, Ireland and her partners in the European Union stand ready to assist the integration process in Latin America in any practical way possible and to share the fruits of the European experience of integration wherever this may be relevant to the journey on which you are now embarking. To this end, the European Union has developed an active dialogue, on political and economic issues of mutual interest with the Rio Group The Union recognises the importance of Mercosur and is committed to forging a close partnership with it to the mutual benefit of both groupings.
Mr. President, the European Union's deepening relations with the Rio Group and Mercosur offer exciting new opportunities and enrich the close bilateral ties which our two countries have long enjoyed. Ireland looks forward to playing its full part in ensuring that these opportunities are availed of.
In conclusion I would like to invite those here this evening to join me in a toast to The President and people of the Republic of Argentina.