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WE SLOVENES ALSO WANTED THE STABILITY PACT
Memorial rally on the 80th anniversary of the unification of Prekmurje with Slovenia
Speech of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Milan Kucan
Beltinci, 14 August 1999
‘We Slovenes also wanted the Stability Pact’ was President Kucan’s response at the festivities in Beltinci to the apprehension surrounding the Stability Pact on the grounds that it is pushing Slovenia into political frameworks reminiscent of the former Yugoslavia. He stressed that ‘For years we have been trying to persuade Europe that the Balkans are a European problem and that the countries involved in the bloody conflict cannot themselves find a way out of it, that they will not find a path to Europe unless Europe, united and determined that the life led everywhere else in Europe is possible here too, first comes to the Balkans with its values, projects and help. Behind this project stands the entire world. The participants include the EU, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the UN, the OECD, Nato the WEU, international financial institutions, countries from the USA to Japan, and all the regional initiatives that have been made to date. Slovenia is part of this ordered and peaceful world. It is its opportunity and responsibility to be active in the Pact and to contribute to the stabilisation of south-eastern Europe.’
My dear compatriots,
I am very happy to be in my native Prekmurje once again for this festive occasion. Allow me to take this opportunity to give sincere greetings to all Prekmurians, to all of you who today live in what was once the Slovene March and who together are shaping its present image and that of the future. We remember the events of eighty years ago with pride. That period saw the assertion of ‘the will of the Prekmurian people’ to live together with their brothers and sisters on the other side of the Mura, and also the expectation that the new rule, their ‘own’ rule, would be different, better, with more attention paid to the development of localities between the Mura and the Raba, to agrarian reform, and to democracy.
The Prekmurian people - Slovenes, Hungarians, Romanies and all who live here in Prekmurje, as well as those of us who are scattered across Slovenia and the world, have experienced over the past eighty years a very intense and very contradictory history. The time of borders and restrictions is increasingly, and let us hope finally, being superseded by a time of cooperation, a time of once unimaginable possibilities for development and challenges. The future lies in a united Europe, in a community of equal nations, large and small, with recognisable national identities, nations which will live in peace, democracy, cooperation and competition for the good of all the European peoples who in this unhappy century have been so sorely tested by wars, totalitarian ideologies and the most brutal violence of every type.
This is a challenge and an opportunity for us too, for Slovenia and Prekmurje. We therefore need a consensus of citizens in Slovenia, the agreement of the majority of Slovene voters and politicians, that a new momentum for development in Slovenia will only be achieved through cooperation, dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect and trust. In this way we shall preserve the differences which are the source of new ideas. We shall have a reliable basis for a creative life in this emerging Europe and an agreement to live in a civilised democracy rather than in political, legal and social barbarism. For this reason too, today’s festivities are not a triumph for some and a reason for dissatisfaction for others. In memory of the Prekmurian Slovenes and Hungarians let us search for new moral strength to allow a more mature confrontation with the future, to increase the self-confidence of all citizens of Slovenia, to create a new developmental consensus which is open to all and common to all.
It is lack of confidence which hinders us here. A lack of confidence which rears its head whenever decisions are to be made on the open questions of our relations with our neighbours, and particularly when we need to define our interests and our place in the efforts of the international community in the direction of peace and stability in the Balkans. Apprehension over the supposed pushing of Slovenia into new political frameworks reminiscent of the former Yugoslavia is being maintained in Slovene political life and in public life in general by those who clearly did not and do not know why, in 1990, we Slovenes asserted the right to self-determination and demanded separation from the common Yugoslav state.
They behave as though the Slovene plebiscite, an appeal to the right to self-determination and the foundation of our own democratic and open state, were a trick played on the international community. As though even today they are not convinced of the deep justification of the decisions taken at that time, and as though they were neither aware of nor did they experience all the depths and extremes of the political, spiritual, economic and cultural conflict which in the 1980s destroyed every possibility of a common life inYugoslavia. They have guilty consciences because at that time they neither understood nor risked anything, and because even today they do not understand that ignoring Slovenia’s responsibility in the joint efforts of the international community to solve the crisis in the Balkans provides arguments for those who unfortunately still believe that Slovenia, through its decision in the plebiscite, is co-responsible for the incomprehensible tragedy and suffering in the Balkans.
What we Slovenes knew about the nature and spread of violence in Yugoslavia ten years ago is known today by the whole world. Now, when the world is finally acting - thanks in part to us - to remove the causes of violence and establish conditions for a decent life in the Balkans, it is only right that we too should cooperate with all our capabilities and resources. This is also expected of us.
In today’s democratic world, in which relations are established on the principles of the United Nations, every country determines its own place. No-one today can force a democratic country to act contrary to its vital and legitimate national interests, interests which have international validity. No democratic country today would regulate its vital interests in isolation unless it saw a danger in openness because this puts to the test its ability, competitiveness and creativity in the international dimension. The fear that in this international competition we might show ourselves to be incapable of offering our own vision of a solution to the Balkan crisis, a removal of its historical causes, and ways of cooperation which will bring these nations and states as soon as possible into European integrations and the modern course of European history - this and ignorance are the real reasons for maintaining this political fear of recognising and admitting the fact that Slovenia does not only have a west and north but also a south and east. That objectively speaking it is not only a part of the central European spiritual area, but is in fact that part of it which borders the Balkans. And that this fact charges Slovenia with a special role and responsibility - not least in the Stability Pact for South-East Europe, which in some parts of Slovenia has provoked new discomfort, new unknowns and new phobias about the Balkans.
For Slovenia it is useful to take a different view of the Stability Pact. No-one in the modern world can expect to gain anything from the common good, from peace, security, stability, democracy, the rule of human rights, economic development, prosperity, protection from organised crime, corruption etc., if he is not himself ready to contribute to the creation and protection of this common good. The selfishness of states and nations is not a value which the international community acknowledges and rewards. Solidarity, a willingness to assume part of the common burden, is the value which today means entry into the international community. On this depends the credibility of every country. The worst thing that can befall a state today is to gain the reputation of being selfish and untrustworthy.
We Slovenes also wanted the Stability Pact. For years we have been trying to persuade Europe that the Balkans are a European problem and that the countries involved in the bloody conflict cannot themselves find a way out of it, that they will not find a path to Europe unless Europe, united and determined that the life led everywhere else in Europe is possible here too, first comes to the Balkans with its values, projects and help. Behind this project stands the entire world. The participants include the EU, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the UN, the OECD, Nato the WEU, international financial institutions, countries from the USA to Japan, and all the regional initiatives that have been made to date. Slovenia is part of this ordered and peaceful world. It is its opportunity and responsibility to be active in the Pact and to contribute to the stabilisation of south-eastern Europe. Slovenia has many advantages and can offer knowledge which also leads to ideas such as the founding of an international university in Slovenia for south-eastern Europe, the education of businesspeople, the transfer of our experience in asserting the rule of human rights and a democratic minorities policy, the training of small and medium-sized enterprises, clearance of mines in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the establishing of banking and financial institutions, insurance companies etc. For now it is possible to say that commercial and intellectual Slovenia is acting the same way as all other European states which are willing to do something for the peaceful future of the Balkans, which understand that a peaceful and stable Europe is also in their vital interests. When the entire Slovene political elite also acts like this, we will be able to state with satisfaction that our national self-confidence has also matured.
Within this of course there is also an understanding and recognition of the development possibilities and opportunities of Prekmurje, first of all here at home, and then across the Mura in all of Slovenia. And also constant attention to, and cultivation of, the coexistence of peoples of various nationalities and faiths. Consensus on this, a common will and decision to do as much as possible for the common good and at the same time for our own good, and to exploit as best we can the possibilities and opportunities for development, will be the more solid and successful the more consistent we remain to our own fundamental commitments adopted at the plebiscite of 1990 in Prekmurje and in Slovenia as a whole. Including those whose roots reach back to the expectant hope and decision of 1918, a decision which saw Prekmurje join the common Slovene homeland.
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