THE GULF RUNNING BETWEEN THE ADVANCED NORTH AND THE POOR SOUTH APPEARS IN EUROPE AS A CLASH BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
Opening of the 8th congress of European chambers of Commerce "Vital Enterprises, vital Europe"
Spoken - shorter version published

Berlin (Germany), 19 October 2000

Politics is keeping pace with economic universalisation with difficulty and only to a partial extent. Of course there is the UN, its specialised agencies, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, as well as other mechanisms for balancing international relations. Yet unfortunately they tend to respond to changes in the world only after the outbreak of financial, economic and political crises. Their functioning is insufficiently in step with the changed world and they are working too little towards prevention to avoid the conflicts that have emerged as a consequence of the difference in economic development of individual parts of the world. And globalisation is increasing these differences.

In the open, multipolar world in which it is no longer the centre of development of human civilisation, as it was for the last 500 years, Europe can be one of the front-runners of civilisational development only if it is internally globalised; if all its parts are integrated into the whole, if no one is excluded from the common future or marginalised. Europe needs coevolution.

Photo: BOBO



Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am honoured to have been invited by the leadership of Eurochambres to speak at such a distinguished assembly. The topic Vital Enterprises, Vital Europe is a challenge. And I have aimed my address at the Europe of the future. I shall speak about the world of rapid and profound changes, in which the only fixed point is change itself, and about Europe, which must be one of the factors creating the image and substance of the new world.

I.

The turbulent environment of our changing world confirms the thesis of Nobel laureate Kuznets, that a developmental head-start is held by those countries which to the greatest possible extent incorporate knowledge and technological advancement into the administration of their societies and the managing of their economies. The potential for development is held by those countries that are able to fully understand and identify the relationship between knowledge and capital, to the benefit of knowledge, and to adopt and establish the cultural values of modern societies.

Globalisation today is a fact of life. And we are also faced with it in Europe, which is becoming a single economic, and increasingly political, entity. Today countries are increasingly shedding their traditional identities, specialisation in the economy is continually rising, multinational companies are less and less concerned with national borders, their balance sheets are frequently larger than the entire budgets or GDP of smaller countries, the rules of business are standardised throughout the world, national legal systems are increasingly uniform, physical distances are losing importance, and English has become the global language of business. The highly advanced and innovative societies are developing new technologies and knowledge at an accelerated pace, and on this foundation they are constructing programmes that generate high added value. The technologically less demanding and more labour-intensive programmes are being transferred to the less developed economies.

Now the dynamic foundations of competitiveness are becoming established. Knowledge, which engenders new ideas, is becoming the fundamental competitive advantage. This is the commodity which is most in demand today. The most advanced parts of the world are turning into idea laboratories, or as it was put to me by the president of Hewlett-Packard, Ms Fiorina: the world is experiencing a new renaissance – a renaissance of ideas.


The information society has become the driving force for the universality of our golobalised world. Politics is keeping pace with economic universalisation with difficulty and only to a partial extent. Of course there is the UN, its specialised agencies, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, as well as other mechanisms for balancing international relations. Yet unfortunately they tend to respond to changes in the world only after the outbreak of financial, economic and political crises. Their functioning is insufficiently in step with the changed world and they are working too little towards prevention to avoid the conflicts that have emerged as a consequence of the difference in economic development of individual parts of the world. And globalisation is increasing these differences. The traps of globalisation have been spelt out in the recent unrest and protests in Seattle, Washington, Melbourne and Prague, as well as in the documents adopted recently at the UN Millennium Forum.

Seeking a way out of what is currently a very promising but at the same time worrying situation will not be possible without tackling the following tasks:

The first concerns the formulation of a new world economic and financial order, which should through the redistribution of profits enable the establishing of the social function of the state as well as developmental changes in those countries which have been left behind in economic growth, or which in the new developmental drive are not able to help themselves. Responsibility for effecting this is also borne by the strongest economies today. In view of the new circumstances they will have to supplement their traditional legitimate national interests with interests that are founded in the global world on the requirement for global responsibility. This also holds true for the European superpowers and their responsibility for a Europe in the process of uniting, as a part of the global world.

The second involves the setting up of a new global policy, which should be decided in consensus by the large and small nation states. The alluring prospect of an agreement among the political and economic superpowers that, given their political and economic might and their supposedly privileged responsibility, they should form some kind of world government of the great, which would determine the internal and foreign policies of all the current and future nation states, is no kind of solution. Ultimately this would lead to a new division of political and economic spheres of interest, with the in-built possibility of conflict and enmity. What is needed is a new, responsible consideration of the character, role and significance of the nation state as it emerged in the political thought of the 19th century and which for the most part is still in existence. It must be brought face to face with the idea of an open state of citizens, which would be appropriate to the new world order. The state of the 21st century, open for cooperation and prepared for global responsibility, should be favourably inclined towards the common fulfilment of a part of its sovereign national functions in democratically agreed and supervised supranational and transnational common institutions.

The third task involves the global expansion of political, economic and cultural democracy as the new strategy of peace, security and cooperation. The global expansion of this kind of democracy, creatively linked to the civilisational traditions of various parts of the human world, provide the most reliable guarantee of local and world peace, and along with it the conditions for a new ascent of humankind. Through human freedoms and rights as the universal values of the global world, the responsibility of each and every country becomes indivisible. Every country is responsible both for the situation within itself and also for the security and stability of the whole.

The fourth concerns the establishing of dialogue and cooperation between various civilisations of the human world. If the global community is truly to come alive, it must have a ‘soul’. This ‘soul’ can be provided by the common wealth of the civilisational and spiritual experiences of the large and small nations of the world. The aim of intercultural dialogue cannot be a global culture, which would take from people and nations their identity and security, for as humans we need secure roots in our own history and culture. Its aim is communication, and through it the creation of trust on the basis of mutual familiarisation and respect, which provides human society with internal stability, firmness and solidarity. Otherwise we run the risk of the one-time ideological confrontations of the Cold War being replaced by clashes between civilisations and religions.

The Europe of the future must also have a soul. Indeed people are not just asking whether and how Europe is functioning, via what institutions and legal systems, they are also asking what a united Europe means for them personally. They are asking about the culture and values of Europe, and they are asking less about regulations, contributions, incentives, quotas and so forth. They are leaving these questions to the economists, experts, appropriate institutions and to state administrators. As the American sociologist Daniel Bell says, today the nation state is too small for big problems, and too big for small problems. It is a global and connected, if not yet united, Europe that can be a partner to the globalised world, and such a Europe will succeed by embodying the enterprising spirit, by developing its diversity and by staying faithful to the system of values it has created in the democratic tradition of the spirit of European civilisation.

II.

But is Europe responding appropriately to the changes in the world; is it encouraging and helping to create change, or simply defending its position? Is Europe creating development mechanisms in order to establish itself as one of the key players in changing the world and itself?

In the open, multipolar world in which it is no longer the centre of development of human civilisation, as it was for the last 500 years, Europe can be one of the front-runners of civilisational development only if it is internally globalised; if all its parts are integrated into the whole, if no one is excluded from the common future or marginalised. Europe needs coevolution.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall a different Europe seemed possible. Its future acquired an identifiable and truly palpable substance in the idea of European association and in the EU. Expansion of the EU ensures the future, and membership in it is the focus of efforts by the great majority of countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We have never had a better opportunity than this one offered by post-Berlin Europe. And we have never had a greater challenge than that posed by globalisation. Europe’s responsibility for entering into its own future is at the same time Europe’s responsibility for the future of the world.

Yet the seeds of new division in Europe soon germinated in the rubble of the Berlin Wall. In reality, there are several Europes in existence today. There are the countries of the EU and members of NATO, which have been developing in the long European democratic tradition, in the rule of human rights and the prospects of new economic progress, along with a common European currency; that is one Europe. Another Europe is embodied in the countries that are negotiating with the EU. Countries, therefore, which are in the first or second class waiting rooms, expecting to board the European train. A third Europe is presented by the countries of Eastern and South Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia and Moldova), which have not yet arrived even in the lobby of the European waiting room, although they want to. Some of them will not make it there without assistance.

Serbia, poised to tip the scales of peace in South Eastern Europe, is now on the verge of change. And it will also depend on Europe’s approach to Serbia, whether the European value system will again enter the consciousness of the Serbian people. Serbia, just like the other Balkan states, must be shown the tough yet realistic prospect of joining the European integrations. And all must be offered the same conditions, without any special concessions, and yet for that reason with all the more developmental help. Now that the regime has fallen, this will help to effect a change in the political agenda and in the value system on which it was based; the change in such a way that all the main points of identification will be recognisable as a realistic alternative to the politics of Milo¹evi€.


Slovenia believes in the idea of European association. It is stepping up its efforts to ensure that by the end of 2002 it will fulfil all the conditions for accession to the EU. In Slovenia, as in other candidate countries, we are not preparing simply for entry into the European Union – we are also asking ourselves what kind of European Union we will be joining. The EU has without doubt invested enormous effort in securing a safe and stable future for its member states, it has tightened up the value system on which the internal relations are founded, and has sought a model for moving beyond internal antagonisms. Now the point is to expand what it has achieved to cover all of Europe and in implementing this, to incorporate new countries and their visions.

A major step in the European Union’s awareness of the strategic importance of cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and their incorporation into a region of linked telecommunications, information and other infrastructure and increasingly free flow of goods, services, capital, technology and investments, was made with the Copenhagen initiative in 1993. From that time to the present, the transition countries have trodden the thorny path of transformation. Some have almost completed the process, others are still deeply in it. They had to, and must still, dismantle the old, without having a clear picture of the new and without being completely familiar with the solutions demanded by the new environment.

The advanced countries of Europe in particular take too little account of the fact that widening the gap between the advanced countries and the transition countries does not simply kill the future of the transition countries. The gulf between north and south appears in Europe as a clash between east and west. Widening this gulf destroys the developmental prospects of Europe as a whole. For the transition countries are not simply potential markets, but are above all their reserves of development potential. The possibilities for effective activation of this potential are decisive in the common growth and development.

I am firmly convinced that to enhance its competitive edge in the globalised world, Europe does not need a continuous stream of new regulations, which would require the same tomatoes and chickens throughout the continent. The ‘Europe of the future’ could very well be a new ‘European enterprise’, in which the managers of European development will be able to turn problems into development challenges, just as the managers of the most successful enterprises are able to do. And then they will also be able to bridge the developmental gulf between the east and west of Europe. They will be able to prevent the risk of some having their sails set too full and bringing everyone into the doldrums. They will be able to construct on the diversity of cultures, traditions and experiences a European developmental laboratory for the production of ideas. For the most important currency of the future will be neither the US dollar nor the European euro. The most important currency of the future in Europe as well are ideas.

In June 1997 I was in Berlin at the international economic conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. There was justified talk of how this Plan fostered the economic renewal of a ruined Europe. Sadly, this was only for the Western European countries, for at that time the evil Iron Curtain had already been set in place. The consequences of this are known and will continue to burden Europe for a long time to come. Now we have the opportunity to build a Europe of the third millennium together. We now have the chance to reconcile all of Europe, and through this to create a free community of European countries. A community which will be founded on social stability, competitive cooperation in the common economic area, the rule of human rights and other values of the Euro-American democratic tradition. This involves the question how we see our future: a Europe of self-centred national structures, with the dominance of the superpowers along 19th century lines, or a Europe of the 21st century. It will only be possible to break free from the perdition of malingering self-centredness in a world that has become a global village if European provincialism is challenged by European globalism.

The smaller nations and countries believe in this. And not because of the classic comparative advantages enjoyed by economies of scale, and the advantages held objectively by the big countries. We believe in this because ideas are the main engine of a global Europe. In ideas it is not size that matters, but people. And in establishing this modern advantage, we will also be securing our own opportunity.

Ladies and gentlemen, in your search for the new face of the ‘Europe of the future’ and in charting the most effective paths towards the more rapid and higher quality development of a globalised Europe, may I wish you every success in the Congress, and in your discussions a confirmation of the central topic: "Vital Enterprises, Vital Europe".