TOAST BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA MR MILAN KUCAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE STATE VISIT TO THE KINGDOM OF SWEDEN
State visit to Kingdom of Sweden

Stockholm (Sweden), 5 October 1999



Your Majesties, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was deeply honoured to receive the invitation from Your Majesty for my wife and I to visit your beautiful country, the kingdom in the north, which has such a rich and fascinating tradition as well as a proud history. One of the oldest and most distinguished countries is now hosting one of the youngest in the family of European countries; indeed my country is only now seeking within this family its own recognisable image and is establishing its good name, born and nurtured during the turbulent times of the reopened Brandenburg Gate. I accepted this invitation with sincere pleasure, for I regard it as a great recognition of Slovenia. For this reason I would also like to express my particular thanks for the opportunity to present Slovenia’s views on the European future at the University of Uppsala. Believe me, all of us who have the honour to be with you now, will use this visit to enhance our mutual acquaintance, the cooperation between our two countries, mutual understanding and to step up our common efforts towards an agreeable future for the people of Europe.

The modern world of technology and communication has significantly reduced the distances between people, nations and countries. What happens in the north is known about in the same instant in the south. We no longer have to wait for autumn for the geese to arrive, those geese who carried on their wings the boy Nils Holgerson, to whom your writer Selma Lagerlöf so enchantingly presented the Swedish countryside for children here and throughout the world. And I ask myself, are we capable of making sufficient use of our technological achievements to reduce all the other distances between people - including the distance between Sweden and Slovenia? We have lived through different histories, although on consideration they turn out to be less different and indeed closer than they would appear at first glance. In the same, distant 16th century we were already able to read the Bible in our own two languages, but Europe’s political history and the former way of life held each of us fast in our own parts of the continent. We knew precious little about each other. It was literature that afforded a picture of Sweden in the Slovene memory. Today we are closer. We are linked by the numerous Slovenes who live and work successfully in the Kingdom of Sweden. The ties between our two countries are reflected in the number of Slovene economic and commercial representatives who have come with us to strengthen their partnerships with Swedish companies, or who desire such partnerships and are now seeking them. We have a fine common tradition in the translation of literature. In the world of science, distinguished Swedish universities have opened their doors to Slovene people. Sweden is close to us in searching for high quality, for the creation of new values, and at the same time respect the social role of the state and social justice, without which it is impossible to contemplate an agreeable future for all people. We are bound by our faith in the New Europe and by the confidence that we people of Europe today, tested by our painful past, are capable of creating the New Europe for ourselves and for the coming generations.

Eight years ago, the new state of Slovenia embarked on its independent life, so that it might be a part of the integrating Europe. Just like other nations and countries, we wish to contribute to Europe our own special qualities, and at the same time preserve these qualities; and we wish to help in creating a common and secure home of worthy human dignity, diversity, coexistence and prosperity. Cooperation with Sweden means a great deal to us in this. Sweden is different from Slovenia, but we expect the same guarantees from the future. We both desire a secure world, and we are also prepared to do a great deal to achieve it. We both desire a human world of freedom and prosperity, and we are prepared to work for it. I have a strong wish that this current visit might bind us even more closely in our common desire.

Sadly, on this threshold of the third millennium people in many places are not free individuals. They are forced to be an obedient part of an introverted national group, aggressive towards everyone beyond that group. In that environment a individual must belong to the strongest or die. The war cries of nationalists reach beyond the boundaries of crisis zones. The world is linked and interdependent. Violence against one person or nation is violence against all of us. What happens in the Balkans is a danger and a caution for all Europe.

Slovenia lives on a borderline. Not far beyond a world begins dominated by hatred towards others. We are well acquainted with its malevolent nature. Our life interest and moral duty is to see that peace prevails in that part of Europe, and that there, too, people might start to live in the same way as in the peaceful part of Europe. For this reason we greatly esteem and respect Swedish efforts, and especially the efforts of the royal family, to enable the Balkans finally to step out of its ill-favoured past. Central European Slovenia is also cooperating and is prepared in the future to make its best effort to cooperate in the common work towards bringing peace and a new life to Southeast Europe. We are pleased that together we can offer help to long-suffering people, and through our cooperation they, too, will gain the right to a future.

Your Majesties, let me raise my glass to your health, to a prosperous Sweden and Slovenia, to our cooperation, to a peaceful and secure Europe, to a world without borders for all people who are prepared to think with their hearts.


Photo: BOBO


Photo: BOBO