Mr. Lambrinidis: Thank you Mr. President, thank you Mr. Foreign Minister, for this wonderful hospitality, and particularly thank you for the Montenegrin Chairmanship of the SEECP. You placed as a goal a focus on the European perspectives of our region. And you achieved through that focus a refocusing of our efforts on a number of issues that need to be discussed, and that we don’t or we haven’t discussed up to now. Let me also congratulate the President of Serbia on assuming the Presidency for the next year and wish everyone success, because we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Dear friends, Europe today is at a crossroads, not so much of policies, in my view, as of values. Some fundamental values of the European Union have been challenged in recent years. One of these is responsibility: the responsibility of some countries to their partners in the EU and their commitments under the treaties. And another value that is being challenged today, concurrent with the first one, is the value of solidarity. In other words, a fundamental value upon which the EU was built.
Now, this concurrent challenging of fundamental values has resulted, in the midst of the economic crisis, in a danger that we in Southeastern Europe have known quite well in the past. And that danger is the fear that people feel of a future that appears to be more unknown or unstable to them, compared to a few years back; a fear that tends to close people within their own borders and countries. A fear – and we see this in a number of European states – that risks bringing out instances of extreme nationalism, of suspicion against the other, even among peoples and countries who are both institutionally and historically deeply friendly towards each other.
This is a danger that Europe is going through right now. I think Europe will emerge much stronger from this process. And this is because Europe has become much more united in some ways in the past decade. And I would say the best known and most fundamental example of this is the Monetary Union. But the process of economic integration to follow monetary integration – which many believed from the outset was absolutely necessary but didn’t exist – is one that we are going through at this stage. And this, of course, means growing pains of the most powerful, the largest, the most diverse economy in the world if you were to add together all the countries in the European Union today and – hopefully, and this is what we are fighting for – the countries in our region working to become full members soon.
Europe will come out of this crisis and it will come out much stronger. So, I guess the message that we have for all of us here, and for anyone else who may be observing our meeting, is to notice these concerns that I have underlined. But under no circumstances should we assume that this means the end of anything. This is the beginning of a much stronger Europe and this is what we should focus on.
Now, in that context of fear, of nationalism, of closing into one’s own borders, we are sitting here, Mr. President, and we are the region that for decades had been pointed at by everyone else as the region that had such problems. Can we now be the ones who show the way to others: how not to have such problems? I believe we can.
And I think that peripheral cooperation in Southeastern Europe has increased considerably in recent years. It has been characterized by regional ownership, which is hugely important, and by inclusiveness in the entire process.
We have indeed achieved great progress in areas such as socioeconomic development, Justice and Home Affairs, building human capital, parliamentary cooperation. But – and I think a number of these features today underline this – we have a long away to go in these areas as well. We are not done. And this is a challenge that the Serbian Presidency has ahead of it.
Let me underline three or four points of hard and systematic work that, in my country’s view, we still have ahead of us in these areas. Work to ensure that we stay steady on the path of European and Euroatlantic integration. And this for Greece is apparent. Now we need open, democratic, structured and political dialogue among all interested parties. This is a prerequisite for improvement of the political and social climate in the region and integration into the European and Euroatlantic institutions. We need this.
The second point I would make: we need good neighbourly relations, it goes without saying. Many have stated this. And they still have to be consolidated, unfortunately, among all countries in the region and in all aspects of state activity. Border disputes, interethnic mistrust, rising ethnic nationalism – we have it in our borders as well, you know it, you know it very well.
Chronic disputes among neighbours must be resolved. We do have the power to do it. We’ve been saying this for decades, but I just believe that we now have the opportunity to lead the way for the whole of Europe, as I said in the beginning, with this example. We can be the torch of hope for the rest of Europe, and I, for my part, for my country’s part, can assure you that we will not abandon this responsibility and this opportunity.
A third point is that we need coordinated collective work at the national and regional levels in order to respond to the consequences of the economic crisis. Unquestionably, energy is a major issue we have to discuss, including energy grids of course – which is the fundamental issue for Europe – and unquestionably transport and connections between countries is needed.
Let me give you an example from my personal experience: I flew out of Romania yesterday to come to Montenegro. I had to take a really early flight to Austria and wait there for a few hours. Then I had to fly, the only part of this was I had to fly Air Montenegro, from Austria to Montenegro, and that was actually rather nice, but it would be very, very nice if we could have more connections. This sort of thing costs money, of course, but this is the kind of cooperation you need: you find out how to share those lines so that every airline can make a profit and we can jointly make a profit as a region.
Now in this context, dear friends, Greece is on a solid path to economic recovery. In 2010 alone we achieved, for those who don’t know, a decrease of 5% in the country’s deficit; we had a very large deficit and a very large debt, everyone knows this. A very advanced and very dynamic economy, such as Greece’s, got into trouble in the past few years and we are committed to correcting it and correcting it fast. It is not going to be easy, we all know this, but it will happen, I assure you. In the same way that one should not look at Europe’s problems today and assume that they will be there for a long time. Rest assured, the same applies specifically for Greece.
Now, our economic and fiscal adjustment program – supported by the EU, as you know, and the European Central Bank, the IMF etc. – has been enriched with the key provisions on large-scale privatizations and the use of public property and of course cutting public spending. The Greek banking system, dear friends, is very stable and very healthy and Greek enterprises that have been established in Southeastern Europe maintain their positions, their market share. I think that you will see the European Union in our region, now with the economic recovery in full speed throughout the EU, be even more powerfully supportive of Southeastern Europe. I assure you that Greece will be on the front lines of this effort.
Dear friends, let me end by focusing on the European perspective of our region. I would also like to bring to you my own personal experience from the recent Foreign Affairs Council in Luxemburg last week. I want to assure you that the climate among the Foreign Ministers was enthusiastic about Croatia, and one wouldn’t have expected it, given what people claim about Europe’s enlargement fatigue, as you mentioned, but in fact that is not the case. There was enthusiasm about having reached the end of this process.
There was also, I should say, great hope for Serbia after Mladic’s arrest. Many, many Foreign Ministers, including myself and many others, underlined that now Serbia is and should be on national full course towards European integration and membership, and I think this unblocks and gives hope for the whole region as well.
But we now need a greater impetus, I would claim and I would submit to you, and what I mean by this is that, as you remember, it was in the framework of the Southeastern cooperation process that Greece announced its ‘Agenda 2014’ initiative. This is something that we have promoted and we are promoting very, very forcefully and powerfully within the EU.
The EU needs a spur and our region needs a spur in this process. The President of Serbia mentioned, very correctly, that of course each country has its own path and its own responsibilities. But the responsibilities are there and the reform process is there, the criteria are known and we in this region – all countries who are not yet members of the EU – need to know that the European Union is not simply paying lip service to entry but is committed to having them in, so long as those changes are made.
At the same time, and the EU itself must remember – this ties to what I said at the beginning – the great value of solidarity, which was fundamental in the creation of the EU and that helped us develop into this huge zone, an area of peace and stability and prosperity that no country, no matter how big or small, would have achieved alone. That is absolutely clear. But within the sphere of these days, not many people are discussing this.
So can we get the impetus we need from Agenda 2014? What I want to assure you is that after 2003 with the Thessaloniki agenda, in 2014 when Greece will again have the Presidency of the EU, we will push for a Thessaloniki II, as we call it. Our objective is to convene an EU-Western Balkan summit meeting, and adopt a political declaration that will set a specific, ambitious and yet realistic target for completing the accession process of Western Balkan countries.
I believe we can succeed. We will of course, it goes without saying, start conversations and consultations with everyone around this table very soon, to ensure that we can do it in the best way possible.
Dear friends, in order for our Western Balkan neighbours and friends to advance towards full EU membership, as I said before all criteria and requirements set by the EU should be fulfilled. The paces at which they will join the EU depend entirely on them.
In this context, the stabilization and association process is still the main vehicle for the European perspective of the Western Balkans, and in terms of our cooperation, and I will close with this, dear friends, let me just say this: Many people have mentioned that we are a region of history and have a history. Absolutely. Everyone knows this.
And here we are today, facing a major challenge: to lead the way for the rest of Europe to just jump ahead; to abandon nationalistic fears and forget closing oneself into one’s own borders. Our history can be our future; it should not be our past in my view. We have a unique opportunity to make history. We should abandon all those efforts to rewrite it. Rewriting history? What sense does it make when you can actually make history? I hope we can, I hope we will. I assure you that Greece will be, as always, an extremely strong, an extremely sincere, supporter of the European integration of Southeastern Europe. We will be, as you are, on each other’s side. Thank you.
June 30, 2011