Solemn Academy on the occasion of the National day
Dear Slovenes,
Fellow citizens,
Fellow Slovenes around the world,
High Guests, Your Excellencies

Here, on territories home to us for centuries, we Slovenes drew a new country onto the political map of modern Europe ten years ago. A new member joined the international community from anonymity - Slovenia, the homeland of Slovenes and of all those of us who live here this day. Released and realised was the positive energy created through generations of Slovenes by the idea of a united Slovenia. In the consciences of our contemporaries and in our common political action, this idea grew into the decision of forming our own state.

Today is a celebration for all of us. Today is a day of joy and of pride for all of us. A day, a decade of Slovenian statehood.

There are places that bear in them many layers of time, yet the sheer power of one single day, an evening or a night can inscribe them in our memories forever. From such moment onward, there is not a force of oblivion capable of erasing that memory. I stand convinced that all of us remember the sheer power of our elation and pride that eve of June ten years ago, when on this very square we proclaimed our decision and solemnly announced it to the world. We knew that we had done what every nation must do and what it usually does only once in hisotry. There was therefore no place for doubt, for error. We were proud and remain so today, that our deed was successful, dignified and honourable. Our messages were clear and sincere. We materialised our right to self-determination without encroaching on that same right of any other nation. We respected the principles of international law, the dignity and the rights of every human being in Slovenia, the rights of every minority. We extended our hand of co-operation and respect to our neighbours and to nations with whom we had lived in a common state for many years. We proposed a peaceful and respectful disassociation, understanding the position and the interests of every nation. We did not want the death of the former state to take a single human life.

We invested all our hopes and expectations in our own state, all our human and civic courage, self-respect and pride. Each and every one of us faced their own decision, eye to eye with his own conscience. It was together that we made decisions at the plebiscite and in the war that forced us to defend our decision and our dignity. It was together that we stepped into the uncertain and untrusting world. It is right for us to gratefully and respectfully remember the people who are most closely linked to this act in our consciences: Dr France Bucar, Lojze Peterle, Dr Joze Mencinger, Janez Jansa, Igor Bavcar, Dr Dimitrij Rupel, Jelko Kacin, Dr Joze Pucnik, General Janez Slapar, Spomenka Hribar, Dr Janez Drnovsek, Ciril Zlobec, Ivan Oman, Matjaz Kmecl, Dusan Plut and the many others who stepped out of their everyday anonymity, completed to the best of their ability the task demanded from them by their conscience and their homeland, and then returned to their everyday lives. Today, we belong to the future, to those peoples, nations and states who bear freedom, democracy, security, prosperity, development and solidarity in their hearts. A world built on these principles is large enough for all who accept them. It is the only world worth fighting for, although the roads leading to that world are difficult and many a path leads in the wrong direction.

Today, Slovenia is an established and respected state. This bears witness to our internal strength and the endeavours we accomplished for we understood the times and found creative responses to the challenges those times. We detected sudden changes in the world and independently defined criteria through which to judge the world and our own position and possibilities. This gave us the self-confidence that brought the courage needed for a state to be born.

In measuring the distance from those grand days in Slovene history, we are able to say with confidence that we have achieved a lot, that our stride into the future was a success. Slovenia and Slovene society are now considerably changed, nearer to the life of the highest developed countries. It is fairer for each and every one of us individually to judge whether we are also nearer to the sincere imaginations from the times when we were deciding on independence. Some of our fellow citizens and their families still live in distress, even in poverty, without a future and without dignity, which poverty and unemployment deny to a person. Their living circumstances must become a matter of solidarity for each and every one of us. No one can enjoy prosperity to its fullest if they are unable or unwilling to share that prosperity with others. There is no happiness in the plight of others. That is why the state should be more sensitive, offering the helpless and the marginalized a prospect for the future by stimulating opportunities for work and through a rational system of social assistance. The more social cohesion and solidarity in Slovenia's society, the less exclusion from society and life on its very brink it will see, and the better prepared for the tests of the future it will be. And these tests will be many in this rapid 21st century world.

Will we be measuring decades at all in our future? Will this perchance become a unit of time comparable to erstwhile centuries? While we still can and while we are still able to, let us take one last look at the vivid memory of the ten years past and see how far we've come. It was a time of peace and a time of anxiety: we were putting our economy into order, promoting our development, seeking adequate legal and social security, but primarily we were building a safe country that was open to the world. We also came to find that more must be done for our citizens to see justice in reasonable time, to do away with the often soulless and bureaucratic behaviour towards people, to better stifle crime and corruption. A state owes that much to its citizens. Human dignity, people's rights and freedoms are at the foundation of our actions. Yet they are also a never completely fulfilled commitment, they are always the primary duty of all who define the frames of our lives. All that is to improve in our state calls on will and on uniting our forces. It is part of our common decision for an independent Slovenia.

Today, Slovenia is part of a uniting Europe and part of a world that does not want to see divisions, a world that longs for common values and a world that is able to live with differences. The world has accepted Slovenia as an equal and credible partner. We have proven that we are able and willing to take on our share of the responsibility for this world. Also in a uniting Europe. We are standing on the thresholds of the EU and NATO, we have been successful members of the UN Security Council. We have demonstrated solidarity. We are concerned by the emerging omens of selfishness in European integration. They send a poor message for the future of Europe. It is also unfair for the gates to be closed by those who were able to enter themselves through wide-open gates. We are convinced that all democratic nations in Europe have the right to ensure for themselves stability and prosperity within the Union. It is also time for all of us, the citizens of Europe, to realise that enlargement provides opportunities to all. All of us will benefit tremendously from an expanding area of security, peace, prosperity, development and the fundamental values of the European civilisation's democratic heritage. Europe is far too interlinked and interdependent to escape a single destiny.

Our ten-year-old is knowledgeable of the world and the world is getting to know and recognise it better every day. Now is the opportunity for Slovenia to shape more actively the image of the new world. Let us become more active in endeavours for ensuring peace in the Balkans, in our own neighbourhood. Let us contribute to thought on the future of Europe and on the alleviation of past divisions. Let us strengthen the belief that nations and states which once belonged to Europe's political east and which were snatched from their spiritual environment at the will of others, have remained deeply anchored in their heritage and that they have their own place in a united Europe.

Our ambitions may even go a step further. Let us wish upon a Europe that will be one of the centres of new, sound thinking, so as to become capable of carrying its share of the responsibility for the future of life on this planet. A thinking that will be able to think the consequences of new technologies, demographic trends, globalisation, the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped parts of the world, to think the immigration flows that perhaps are predictions of new great migrations, and international organised crime. The smaller the world, the more frequent its problems and challenges seem. In the light of new challenges this fact requires a new manner of human coexistence on our planet, also to prevent the world from being thrown into chaos by national egoism or ethnic, religious, even cultural and civilisational fundamentalism.

Peace, partnership and cooperation - they are only possible among those who know who they are. If a country has no image of itself, of what is wants and what it would like to achieve, what others expect of it, then its relations with the world, with its neighbours are tense, immersed in doubt and suspicion, pressured by the burdens of history, submission and intimidation. A lack of self-confidence, self-respect and pride are at the root of such action. We are doing well. The onset of the new century opens new horizons even unto Slovenia's proverbial troubles.

We Slovenes are a part of this new world. We have the opportunity of inscribing and etching our own mark on this world. We shall achieve this, provided we among ourselves and with others bear in mind a kind future for mankind. Provided we creatively co-operate with the others seeking such a future. We have knowledge, we have able people. I am convinced we also have the will to unite all of our creative brainpower and energies. It is within universal human values and ideas that we will do most for our own nation, too. It is with our actions, thoughts and sensitivity to others that we shall prove our inner strength and corroborate that we Slovenes are not only alive and that we exist, but that we also very much co-create this new, concerted world. That we have awareness of ourselves and of our uniqueness. That to us Slovenehood is a value that we want to develop and preserve in our country.

He who does not seek fails to find. We have sought and we have found. Past generations have sown, we are now reaping. We, too, have sown, for ourselves and for the generations to come. Let us persist, and they too will reap and sow, seek and find. We belong to a fortunate generation. We have experienced a lot. We have been witness and party to the downfall of worlds and ideologies, we are witnessing the coming of a new world, a world of unseen achievement of the human spirit. Let us partake in the search for answers for the future of mankind. We have created a state and in this state we are sovereign in deciding the future of Slovenehood.

Today is a solemn day for all the citizens of Slovenia.

Today is a day of joy and a day of pride for all of us.

It is also a day of gratitude to all those who laid their lives in the foundations of our future. Let us repay them with a minute of respectful memory.

* * *

Ladies and gentlemen,

Ten years ago we did not have very many strong friends. There were those, however, that understood, supported and helped us. Those were our sincere and true friends. Friendships, true friendships, withstand the test of time. These friendships have. One of those understanding and friendly nations was Germany. Modern, democratic Germany that emerged from the ashes and ruins of one of human history's most horrific regimes. This new Germany is founded on the values of democracy and humanity. Values, which we Slovenes fought for with our democratic allies in World War II. This new Germany was shaped by people of outstanding spirit and supreme ethics, people who have experienced all the tragedy of their nation and who were the creators of its cleansing. They were among the creators of the idea of a united Europe, a Europe to protect our continent and all of mankind from mindlessness, war, violence and trampled human dignity, freedoms and rights.

Today, for the first time, we are hosting the visit by a Chancellor of this new German state who is most successfully carrying on the work of his country's founding fathers. It is an honour that Mr Gerhard Schröder is here with us on the very day of our great holiday, bringing with him a respectful message of congratulations. It is with pleasure that we lend an ear to a guest and a friend of the state of Slovenia.