ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY ROBINSON U.S. COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY ROBINSON U.S. COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, WEDNESDAY, 9 MARCH, 1994
IRELAND: THE EUROPEAN UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE.
A SHARED FUTURE
I am greatly honoured by the invitation to address the Council on Foreign Relations. I have chosen as the theme for my address "Ireland: the European Union and Eastern Europe: a shared future.
The end of the Cold War was welcomed both in the United States and in Europe as the end of an era. A chapter was perceived as having been completed. But it took time to realise that in the history of East/West relations another chapter was only just beginning - one fraught again with difficult issues and seemingly intractable problems.
The walls have come down in Europe and the barbed wire has gone. But the Europe that has emerged is a complex paradox - more divided and more united than ever before. United in its destiny, but divided between areas of peace and zones of instability, areas of prosperity and zones of poverty.
When President Havel addressed the Congress of the United States he won applause by saying that the new Europe he envisaged 'will enable us to escape from the rather antiquated straightjacket of a bipolar view of the world and to enter into a period of multipolarity, into an era in which all of us - large and small, former slaves and former masters - will be able to create what Abraham Lincoln called the family of man'.
The challenge of Eastern Europe and our response to it will, I believe, determine how future generations remember and judge this decade of the 90s - not only in my own country, not only in Europe, but also in the United States. For on this issue as perhaps on no other as President Clinton has said "our freedom is indivisible and our destinies joined".
In the Europe of the Cold War the world was organised around the two forces of ideology and military deterrence. But in the Europe of today military balance is of less obvious relevance to many of the problems we face. It is now more a question of handling the complex interrelationship of economic, ethnic and social problems which have emerged from the ruins of the Communist régimes.
Already the European Union has taken steps to chart a new common course for the continent. Association Agreements have been signed with six of the Eastern European countries. The agreements are far-reaching, providing for close economic and political cooperation, assistance for the development of their economies and significant liberalisation of trade. At the Copenhagen European Council in June 1993 the Union agreed to further accelerate cooperation with the associated countries across all of these spheres and made a firm offer to them of Union membership, as soon as they are able to satisfy the economic and political conditions required.
Further to the East, the Union has been conscious of the Russian dilemma and of the dictum that if Russia is democratic, Europe will be calm. Partnership and cooperation Agreements are currently being negotiated with Russia and a number of the Republics of the former Soviet Union. Trade concessions have already been made and the setting up of a free trade area with Russia is envisaged as a possibility for the future.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe - of which Ireland was one of ten founder members in 1949 - is fast becoming a truly pan-European body. Its present membership of 32 countries includes Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Applications for full membership have been received from eight other countries including Russia and Ukraine, whilst a further list of countries have obtained special guest status, linking their parliaments with the Assembly of the Council of Europe. There is a special programme, the "Demosthenes" programme to assist the countries of central and Eastern Europe to carry out their constitutional, legislative and administrative reforms. It offers practical cooperation in the form of meetings of experts, workshops, training courses, scholarships and study visits.
It is clear however that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe require financial assistance to develop modern market economies. And on this issue the response of the European Union has been significant. Already over 60% of all of the aid flowing into that region is provided by the Union and its member States.
But financial assistance alone is not enough. We must provide the technical expertise to enable the East Europeans themselves to restructure their economies.
The opening up of the East, it has been said, unlike the opening up of the American Frontier will not consist in the unlocking of a vast new territory to large-scale human migration, but in the migration of concrete advice and practical methods on how to develop the institutional framework of a market economy.
Through the PHARE Programme the European Union and individual member States have embarked on comprehensive arrangements to help this process of economic transformation. The programme includes projects at every level of activity from the macro to the micro, from the corporate to the individual and spans all areas of the economic and administrative infrastructure.
In Russia and the States of the CIS another uniquely comprehensive and far-reaching programme of assistance, TACIS, has also been established. Providing help in such key areas as energy, transport, financial services and food distribution TACIS was designed by the European Union to target designated priority sectors.
But peace and stability are not solely the fruit of economic development. They stem also from the nature of political systems and the values on which those systems are based.
Ultimately, the core question facing Europe today is more fundamental than one of development and prosperity alone. It concerns the very significance and the continuing validity of Europe's historical, cultural and political experience.
For what is at stake is the defence and promotion of the positive and permanent values and ideals of European civilisation. Values and ideals based firmly on the centrality of the human person as the subject of inalienable rights and freedoms.
Unless and until these values stretch right across our continent there can be no lasting security for the peoples of Europe as a whole.
In considering how best to foster these values let us reflect on how the Cold War ended. It was not brought to an end by one single conclusive act, although I have no doubt that the physical dismantling of the Berlin Wall will forever in our minds be symbolic of its ending for all of us. It was the growth of human aspiration, progressive and relentless, that drove what has been described as the most optimistic transformation of the European continent that this century has seen. It was a turning point on an historic scale in the minds and hearts of peoples that finally destroyed repression in the eastern half of Europe.
If we have learned anything from the experience of 1989 and the years since it is that the reform process will only succeed and democracy only take root if the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe are fully engaged with it in their minds and in their hearts and in their souls.
To encourage them in their endeavours we have to build on the human potential that was unleashed in 1989. We have to foster, at every level of society in Eastern Europe, a new mentality, free from all of the stultifying rigidities of the Communist regimes - the inflexibility of State run-economies, the sterility of collectivism and the elitist concept of a political infrastructure with no participatory role for ordinary men and women.
To bring about such an open society it is not simply enough to dismantle the closed one. We must support grassroots efforts, across the length and breadth of Eastern Europe - in villages and towns, in small groups and tiny communities - to build the institutions of a civil society.
I firmly believe, as I have said on another occasion, that what we have to protect and foster - by these practical informal processes which are most enduring - is the single individual's precious and irreplaceable sense that things can be changed - and by that individuals own intervention.
In the final analysis the people who threw off the yoke of Communism will have to make their own decisions about their own future. But we in the West can help to shape their choices and assist them in developing and nurturing the fragile shoots of democracy which by their own initiatives they have helped to plant.
Ireland has I believe a very special understanding of the difficulties faced by the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Our histories evolved in separate orbits and the major outside forces that influenced our destinies could not have been more different. But we share an historical development driven by a passion for freedom.
As far back as 150 years ago Daniel O'Connell's doctrine of modern Irish democratic nationalism served as an inspiration to 19th century Czechoslovakia as both countries struggled to emerge from the shadow of a powerful neighbour.
A similar exchange in the realm of ideas was evident with Hungary. One of the early leaders of the Irish Independence Movement, Arthur Griffith drew inspiration from the Constitutional advances made by Hungary in the second half of the 19th century and his book "The Resurrection of Hungary" had a major influence on Irish nationalist thinking of that time. Some decades before Griffith, in 1861 the exiled leader of the 1848 rebellion in Ireland William Smith O'Brien travelled to Hungary to witness the demand of the Hungarian Parliament for the restoration of independent Hungarian institutions.
It was with a particular sense of fellowship therefore that we in Ireland followed the efforts of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to throw off forty years of Communism and reclaim control of their destinies. We admired the courage and perseverance which were necessary over many decades to bring these changes about. And we were conscious of the individual and national sacrifices that had to be made.
But beyond the historical affinities in the struggle for freedom Ireland has a special understanding of the political and economic difficulties involved for a small country in emerging from the domination of a larger neighbour, in setting up Government institutions and in organising an open economy. This is particularly pertinent to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe today.
Like them, Ireland in the 1950's having built up her traditional industries behind a protective tariff barrier faced the difficult choice of continuing with that protection or, in the changed circumstances of a new climate, opting for free trade. Ireland chose to dismantle her tariffs. It was the right choice - but at the time, it was not without cost. Cushioned and protected for years by a high tariff wall many of our traditional industries could not meet the competitive challenge. It was a difficult period. But the policy of openness eventually brought its rewards. New industries began to replace the old and an era of prosperity was ushered in such as the country had not experienced before.
Ireland cannot provide the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with a guaranteed recipe for success but we can share with them our experience of choices and decisions in many respects similar to their own. The success of Ireland in attracting inward investment can, I believe, stand as a point of reference for the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe which are struggling now to establish market oriented economies.
Already the Irish are active in providing technical expertise to these countries and, further to the East, to the former Soviet Union.
A travel weary foreigner transiting today through the airports of Moscow and St Petersberg could be forgiven for thinking he is passing through a little bit of Ireland. Irish accents, Irish products and what can only be described as an Irish atmosphere are there to greet and cater to the needs and interests of the many millions of passengers who pass annually through the doors of the Aer Rianta Duty Free shops. With six joint ventures employing over 100 Irish and 1000 Russians, Aer Rianta Projects in the Russian Federation constitute one of the biggest success stories of Irish/Russian bilateral economic relations.
On another front, in the European Union context, I have heard quoted as one of the most useful elements of the Union's TACIS Programme the work of a technical assistance team led by an Irish economist in the Veronesh region of Russia. The team is responsible for drawing up an integrated economic and business development scheme, helping to develop planning structures and build links with foreign partners.
I have mentioned this particular project as just one example of Irish involvement in technical assistance projects in the Russian Federation. There are other examples I could cite - projects in the food sectors in Vologda and Ekaterinberg, reform of management methods in Lenargo, development of model employment services in Moscow and Samara - these and many others testify to the Irish desire to be actively involved with and offer concrete assistance to the reform process in Russia.
Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and with the same overriding objective of assisting reform, Irish people are working under contract in the European Union's PHARE Programme. In Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic they are helping to modernize public utilities, reform public administrations and develop investment and trade promoting agencies. Used to the problems faced by small developing countries Ireland can bring a particular expertise to these tasks.
Irish Universities and Colleges are participating actively in the Tempus programme, which promotes mobility and links between institutions of higher education. I was surprised when I checked to find that currently twelve Irish third level institutions are involved with 54 Tempus projects in eleven of the central and Eastern European countries.
The challenge which Ireland faced in becoming part of the European Union has also prepared us well to be of particular assistance to those aspiring to Union membership. The Union has been good for Ireland, but over the lifetime of our membership there have been problems to be adjusted to as well as opportunities to be seized. It is not surprising therefore that candidate countries frequently seek our advice.
Ireland believes in the unity of Europe and in the European Union. In three different national referenda the Irish people have demonstrated a clear desire to be part of the Union and to take the process further.
In 1996 the European Union will hold an Intergovernmental Conference with a daunting task. It must chart a course for the Union's future as it prepares to open its doors to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Ireland will have an important role to play in that process holding as it will at the time the Union's Presidency.
The European Community was conceived as an outward looking body. From the start, its founder members envisaged its growth with the adherence of new members. Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome states that "Any European State may apply to become a member of the European Community".
But the extension of the Union to the East will not be easy.
We must remember that Eastern Europe is not a monolith. Its States and its peoples have a political, economic and cultural heterogeneity that has been obscured throughout the years of Communist isolation. It follows that solutions to problems may not easily be found in global approaches but may need to be searched out painstakingly in individual responses on a case by case basis.
This will require a process of rediscovery.
We know now that the Iron Curtain concealed many unpleasant political, economic and environmental truths. But is also separated us from the rich diversity of cultures and peoples that have played a central role in European and in American civilisation. Our effort now must be to rediscover that sense of shared history, of joint destiny, that has been lost for half a century.
Governments have a part to play in this. So too does business. But history is about people. And even more important will be the efforts of our peoples, of individuals, to reach out and reunite our severed histories through shared personal experience.
The process has begun. The flow of peoples and ideas has recommenced. I am heartened and encouraged by the desire of young people including many young Irish people, to travel to Central and Eastern Europe. They visit the great cities. They marvel at their architectural splendour. They rejoice at the rich cultural and intellectual life.
Each visit, each connection, is part of the process of rediscovery, of forging a joint destiny that is essential for Europe's vitality and wellbeing.
Whatever the difficulties ahead, Ireland is certain of the direction in which its future and the future of Europe lies.
For more than four decades it had been clear that the division of Europe between East and West was both unnatural and unstable. Now for the first time this century all of the countries of Europe are free to decide how their societies should be structured and how their relations should be conducted.
But let us all be clear about the immediate future - the old Europe, the Europe of the Cold War has gone. But the new Europe has not yet been built and in this transitional phase we are living through tensions and problems can be expected.
We must respond to the challenge they will pose with innovation and imagination. And when imagination fails us we must fall back on persistence and determination.
Above all we must reach out with openness to the new opportunities for the future. To quote Seamus Heaney, one of Irelands' most distinguished poets
"For last years words belong to last years language and next years words await another voice".
We must not fail in this endeavour. Future generations are vulnerable to the priorities we establish. And they will judge us on the decisions we take.