SLOVENIA AND CROATIA ARE SUFFICIENTLY MATURE AND RESPONSIBLE TO HANDLE THEIR RELATIONS BY THEMSELVES
State visit to the Republic of Croatia - Addres to the Sabor

Zagreb (Croatia), 28 November 2001



Distinguished Mr Speaker,
Mr President,
Honourable Members of Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thank you for extending me the honour and the opportunity of addressing you in this esteemed house. I come before you with Slovenia's best wishes for the further successful development of Croatia as a democratic and safe country of freedom and prosperity for all of its citizens. I should also like to reiterate again Slovenia's firm will and willingness for us to live as good and responsible neighbours, to be of help to each other and to cooperate in all that is of benefit to both our countries.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it speaks volumes that throughout our long common history we have never waged war against one another, although we created a substantial part of our history together, at least ever since the peasant uprisings. We shared our lives in common states. Together we defended freedom in World War II and were victorious in the liberation war as allies in the anti-fascist coalition. Together we invested our hopes into a peaceful and safe life in Yugoslavia, for which we opted believing that it would uphold the principles of social justice and ethnic equality. Together we experienced disappointments and searched for solutions. We stood together firmly when that country ultimately disintegrated, yet we still believed we could prevent the blaze of war. Together we implemented the right of our nations to sovereignty and self-determination and in doing so we acknowledged for every other nation what we wanted for ourselves: the right to our own state while respecting that same right of other nations. We respected the right to freedom, the right to democracy and to a future at one’s own choice. We demanded the rule of human rights, the rule of law and the fundamental values of the European democratic civilisation’s heritage. We offered a peaceful disassociation and sought ways of preventing violence.

Today we can confidently say: Yes, we were right. And in doing so we should remember that we worked together very closely in those days and months.

However, this common confidence also contains a recognition of our common legacy, in many ways also a common obligation/responsibility. The obligation that now, with the violence of war ended, we help the international community find the path towards long-term peace, stability and co-operation in South Eastern Europe, the obligation to righteously settle all accounts between the heirs to the erstwhile common state and, as successors to that state, to see to the fulfilment of bilateral and international treaties concluded by that common state and which are of particular importance for our states and our nations, particularly the Paris Peace Treaty, the Austrian State Treaty and the Osimo Treaties; it is the obligation to ensure for ourselves an equal and active position in European and Euro-Atlantic structures where the future of Europe is being decided, where our future is being decided. Only thus will our decisions and our actions of ten years ago attain true meaning.

The decade following the disintegration of Yugoslavia was a period of decisive steps into a democratic future for our countries. But during the war against Slovenia, immediately following the declaration of independence, these steps began taking different directions. The leaderships of the two states had diverging assessments as to the way ahead. They were faced with different circumstances and they valued their possibilities and the significance of a closer alliance differently. We found ourselves in different circumstances. To a high extent each of us also created our own circumstances. In Croatia, these circumstances were without a doubt more difficult and more complex, its relations toward Serbia and views on the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina carried a heavy burden of history.

Slovenia sooner created for itself the possibility for peaceful work and securing a future. It responsibly used this opportunity for its transformation and for strengthening a fitting position and role in the world. Today, according to UN criteria, it is among the top thirty countries in the world in terms of quality of life and, following lengthy and highly demanding preparations, it is standing at the final door leading to the EU and NATO.

I believe that Croatia would be in a similar position had the circumstances been more favourable during the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation. But they weren't. On the contrary, ten years ago your country experienced atrocities that made it hard to think of reasons and consequences. The tragedies of Vukovar and Dubrovnik, as well as other material and spiritual devastations, made us Slovenes see what blind hatred emerging from ethnic intolerance could have done to us. In the hearts of Slovenes, Vukovar and Dubrovnik in particular are symbols of suffering and heroism in the fight for the right to freedom. They also bear indication of such acts of terror that struck the United States of America and the whole world ten years later in the shape of international terrorism.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you had to defend yourselves in a war that was forced on you. It is with great sacrifice that you defended the right to your own choice of future. Slovenia was with you in the just goals of this war. It also did all it could for the world to comprehend and see who was cast the role of victim in this war and for the world to hear Croatia's truth.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the future, in many ways also our common future, belongs to us now. That is good for Slovenia and, I believe, also for Croatia. Ten years of cooperation between our two countries, with all the advancements and occasional standstills, confirms that. Periods of political deadlock in our relations never put a stop to economic cooperation. Croatian brands are at home in Slovenia and Slovenian brands are at home in Croatia. More than half of all Slovene investments abroad are in Croatia. Slovenia is Croatia's fourth largest trade partner; Croatia is the same to Slovenia. Europe's transport routes to the South-East lead through our territories. We have concluded numerous agreements removing the obstacles that arise between nation states if they self-sufficiently and unconfidently close themselves off, full of mistrust toward other nations and states, even their own citizens. I do believe that we trust one another and that we desire to live in an free area of competition, but also cooperation and partnership that would be of great benefit to both Slovenia and Croatia.

Our borders are open. However, both countries live on the dividing line separating the stable part of Europe from its unstable South-East. Where this dividing line imposed by the circumstances runs will very much depend on ourselves, on our ability, willingness and maturity to manage our relations in accordance with European principles. Slovenia wishes for this dividing line to never again return and set in on the border between our two countries. Moreover, a peaceful and stable South East Europe is undoubtedly in our common interest. Peace is not just the absence of conflict. It is also the presence of conducting life amicably.

I would like to express my firm belief here before you today, that Slovenia and Croatia are sufficiently mature and responsible to handle their relations by themselves. They need no arbitrators and there is no need for our countries to burden the international community with their problems. They do not wish to threaten European peace and security, they do not want to re-enter the sphere of conflict, instability and violence. What is more, they wish to contribute to security in Central and South-Eastern Europe with sound mutual relations.

On the grounds of our common experience, allow me also to express my hope and faith in this High Assembly that we shall have the ability and capacity to settle also what we still carry as the unresolved legacy of our common life in the former Yugoslav federation. It is not that sizable and complicated that it would be impossible to define and divide it reasonably and to our mutual benefit.

Responsible politicians in both states have forged strong ties with a lot of effort and willingness for a mutually beneficial compromise. I believe that they enjoy the support of the majority of both Slovenian and Croatian citizens. Your government and the Slovenian government, particularly their Prime Ministers, have done practically everything that is in their competence in the past year for the two countries to successfully close the chapter of history concerning the disintegration of the former common state.

Negotiations are complete although the process for the definitive settling of all border issues is not over; today our governments are patiently and persistently developing relations that make it possible for life along the border between the two countries to be propitious for the people. The governments are carefully preparing such conditions as for the future Schengen border not to uncompromisingly separate lives and people in our two countries. They are also seeking the most appropriate way in which to settle the obligations of the former Ljubljanska Banka to its foreign currency depositors in your country within the general framework of succession solutions. They have already prepared a reconciled agreement regulating relations in the Kr¹ko Nuclear Power Plant. All of this is known. It is also known that the unsolved issues of the border at sea and the failure to sign the agreed treaty would constitute a serious obstacle to future relations between the states and that that could be politically exploited.

It is without any reservations that I continually supported efforts to settle relations between our two countries while respecting their interests and it would therefore be difficult for me to accept that now, at the very end of the journey, we lose our pace. I also doubt that the citizens of the two countries would accept that as positive. Most of them also know from own experience that such a venture would be neither wise nor far-sighted. I am not inclined toward those lines of thinking in Slovenia and Croatia that reduce everything to the question of what we got out of it and we gave to or took from the other. I favour thinking about what all of us gain from it. What we all gain are better possibilities and opportunities for a different future, peace, security, prosperity, joint development, partnership and cooperation in European and Euro-Atlantic structures. That is what our thoughts were on 25 June 1991 as we declared that Slovenia and Croatia recognise one another within their existing borders. I am also convinced that the already implemented and prepared agreements bring all of that and follow that same line of thinking..

Honourable Deputies, a settlement of the remaining open issues between us will not be possible without the will of the supreme legislators in both countries. Also the land borders and the border at sea cannot be demarked without the consent of both parliaments. Our governments have reached a compromise on this issue and have concluded negotiations. Their joint proposal is now receiving support as well as sharp and even disproportionate accusations both in Slovenia and in Croatia. Nevertheless, the prevalent position in Slovenia is that certain expectations as to the land border could be relinquished, notwithstanding also historic, ethnic and other arguments. The drafted agreement namely respects Slovenia's ancient and natural right of access to the open seas. In our former common state we had a shared and never before divided sea. It was both Slovenian and Croatian. Now the two countries share a common right. Neither of them may now enjoy less such rights, such decisive rights that determine a country's status as a maritime state with its own access to international waters. Only those solutions are good that respect the fundamental permanent national interests of both parties, solutions that will not fall victim to current political circumstances in one state or the other, circumstances that are not capable of reasoning on that permanent interest for a positive, creative and safe life together.

Countries do not choose their neighbours. They can, however, choose the way in which they manage their life together. They are obligated to do so and they cannot run from this responsibility.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply aware that such solutions are very demanding. They require political wisdom. However, I am also convinced that it is worth making an effort today, now, and prove that we are capable of bringing agreements prepared with a great deal of statesmanlike responsibility to their conclusion on our own. To prove that we are capable of understanding the omens of our time, a time when the world at the break of a new century is calling for permanently settled relations between individual states in order for us to successfully manage the future without unnecessary burdens and with the full responsibility of every country for the situation in the entire world.

This economically and increasingly also politically globalised world raises new, very demanding questions before us all, questions that you, too, are debating. As the planet is increasingly dividing into a world of owners of knowledge and information technology on the one hand and a world of continents, states, billions of people without the right to a future on the other hand, into worlds of the rich and the poor, it is creating new divisions and new hot spots with unimaginable consequences for all of mankind. The relentless power of global capital is reaching far beyond the borders of nation states by virtue of its very logic of autonomy. But it carries almost no responsibility whatsoever for social justice and for people's prospects, for sustainable development, for freedom and democracy, for the future, although it has a decisive impact on this future. That care is left to nation states. The world is open hunting ground for capital, crime, terrorism. Nation states are not hunters in this world. They are confined to their internal responsibility, while global development calls for common responsibility for the future of the world.

Trailing far behind global markets, global information and global ecology is global responsibility. This global responsibility starts with the responsibility of every state not to threaten the security, peace and development of others, of everyone through their own actions and to respond to such actions by other states. Global responsibility also means that states can no longer undertake in the name of their own sovereignty - this fundamental, historically acquired and internationally safeguarded principle – things that are in opposition with the values of the democratic world and by which they would threaten the security of other states and world peace. They cannot systematically and flagrantly violate human rights through violence, even state terror, as was the case for instance during the recent dictatorship in Kosovo. Taking recourse to the internal affairs of a state and non-interference of the international community are becoming a thing of the past. Sooner or later the world will have to overcome the traditional perception of the nation state and of its sovereignty. Humanitarian intervention, the international tribunal for war crimes on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and the new international criminal court are an important step toward global responsibility.

All democratic states have an obligation to jointly set the aims and the rules that we are to follow in order for the world to be more righteous to all, for the world belongs to all of humanity. In order also for all the positive achievements of the global world to become the property of all of humankind.

We have to make up for what has been missed. We have namely overlooked the fact that the modern world has become a single large, fatefully interdependent and interconnected society, full of contradictions, a society which hardly knows any common and binding rules of behaviour. No society, let alone a global one, can exist without subjecting itself to standards regulating the relations within that society. Otherwise its potential chaos subjects a society to the rule of force, where the stronger take justice in their own hands. A global world therefore needs a new manner of governance. Perhaps this new manner of governance will be possible within a radically reformed UN, whom nation states would grant full authority based on their global responsibility and their awareness of the interdependence of the modern world. They could then act effectively together for a dynamic development of the world, for a developmental balance of the forces and effects of the global economy, global ecology, and the global world as a whole, stopping international crime and terror and alleviating other negative effects of globalisation.

Globalisation has advantages; it is an opportunity for a better world. States, however, have the responsibility to introduce positive goals and values; to add the principles of cooperation and partnership to the principle of competition as the driving force of development so as to prevent it from turning into its contrariety, to clear the way for global democracy where everyone will bear their own share of common responsibility for the world while still remaining who they are in terms of their roots, tradition, culture. Only a world recognising differences, principles of tolerance and dialogue, and a world that will build on common responsibility will be a world safe and peaceful, a world yielding ever less space to violence against those who are different, against nature, as well as ever less space for international crime and terrorism.

True, a world without borders can also lead to a loss of identity, a loss of human, cultural, social security, as each of us has a home somewhere, each of us is anchored in some spiritual and social tradition that we belong to. Forcible uprooting generates intolerance, rejection, rebellion, conflict and violence. That is why I repeat: a global world required global responsibility and global governance. It also requires the globalisation and globality of democracy with the high sensitivity to the right to be different. Such global democracy cannot be established only as partial democracy in just one country or just one part of the world.

Even after the end of Euro-centrism Europe bears a great responsibility for such a future of the world, for such dialogue between civilisations as will yield a world of common values to all. Otherwise we could truly veer off into a battle of civilisations where some would take the right to life of others. That would undoubtedly threaten the survival of human civilisation in general and even the existence of life on the planet. That is how dramatically the modern world can be seen. If however Europe wants to successfully fulfil its mission it has to be capable of first developing a dialogue at home, between the differences it harbours, it has to strengthen its own world of values based on the universal spiritual heritage of the Christian-Judaic civilisation, alleviate the consequences of old divisions and prevent new ones, so as to achieve a common European position in global dialogue. In all of the fateful questions concerning the modern world and its future, Europeans still usually act as Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, also Croats and Slovenes, not as Europeans, also in the alliance fighting international terrorism. That is why the voice and the influence of Europe does not correspond to its potential power. An internal European dialogue and the ability to develop a common continental position will create a basis for all Europeans, all European nations and states to have such an influence in the world, for a common future that is already being determined in the European Union today. That is why it is so important for all countries of Europe to assume their position of equals in Europe. That is also why we want there to be space for Slovenia and for Croatia in the EU and why we are pursuing this and assisting each other.

All countries are responsible for such a world, Slovenia and Croatia as well. This world is sternly facing us with a choice of whether we shall be on our way toward a new, kinder future for people or not. We shall meet our responsibility if we are freed of the issues that are so very important for life in this small and charming part of the world we live in, yet which are solvable provided there is a strong will and provided we act to our mutual long-term benefit. These issues will lose their alleged fatefulness and historical weight if we face them up with the challenges that the development of a global world has faced all of humanity with, including Croats and Slovenes. That is why we should solve them now and among ourselves. I believe that we are capable of this, for we are bound together by our history, our present and our future.

Distinguished Mr Speaker, honourable Members of Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are doing what we are obliged to do for our own good, and we are doing so for the times that will no longer belong to us. For times that will belong to future generations, whom we owe a legacy of peace, security, prosperity, and thus a kind future, cooperation and understanding for one another. The open issues between us will have to be resolved some time. It would be fair to the generations to follow if we were to take responsibility for the solutions: We, who in many ways were and still are involved in the processes that gave rise these problems along with the benefits for both nations. Our decision depends to a high extent on our ambitions, on whether we want peace and prosperity for our own citizens, on whether we want to have an active and creative role in Europe and in the world. The world is measuring us by our actions. Our decisions depend on the understanding of the challenges of our times, on our foresight into the future and reaching answers. In 1991, ten years ago, we decided for the future. All of us, Croats and Slovenes. We decided for our common future.