Summary: May 8, 2003: Speech by Amb. John B. Richardson (2001-05): "Europe Day 2003" at the Guggenheim (New York)
No venue could be more appropriate on this special evening than this wonderful New York landmark, which looks to the future of art rather than dwelling on the past, because we are looking to the future by welcoming the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Central European states of Poland, Hungary, the Czech republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia, and the two Mediterranean islands, Cyprus and Malta into the European Union.
Three candidate countries remain. For Bulgaria and Romania we have now set a target date of 2007 for them to join the Union and they will be given increased aid to help them achieve this.
There remains Turkey, the biggest of all the candidates and the bridge between Europe and the Middle East, of enormous geopolitical significance. And we will not forget the Western Balkans, emerging from the turmoil of the breakup of Yugoslavia, where we have another five states, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro. They are all involved in the so-called Stabilisation and Association process with the Union, which provides
for their transition to candidate status, through enlargement negotiations, to eventual membership.
In Old Europe all roads led to Rome. In the new Europe all roads lead to Brussels.
Our aim is not just, for the first time, to create a Europe whole and free, peaceful and prosperous, but also to extend across our continent a set of principles, values and standards, which define the very essence of the European Union.
Some of these values are familiar to all of us. Democracy and human rights, the rule of law, and the market economy. But the process of working out what our values are has continued beyond that in Europe.
In particular, we attach particular importance to three more principles: sustainability, cultural diversity, and solidarity.
It was the Rio conference on sustainable development of 1992, which really began to focus attention on the global dimension of this issue, followed by the Kyoto Protocol on Global Climate Change. The concept became a quasi-constitutional commitment for us with the Treaty of Amsterdam, which now defines the aim of all the Union's economic policies as promoting "a harmonious, balanced and sustainable development…". And, of course, we have spent both this week and last working within the UN
Commission on Sustainable Development to help do the same for the world as a whole.
It has been apparent since the beginning of the European integration process that any attempt to apply a melting-pot approach to Europe with the aim of creating a European identity replacing national identities was unrealistic. Over time this idea has given way to a quite different conception of integration, which accepts that the aim is to give the EU the capacity for effective action in pursuit of its goals by sharing sovereignty, but also while preserving those elements of national,
regional, or ethnic identity which are so essential to the well-being of our citizens.
And this is why enlargement is not just about dry legal technicalities. It will also reunite the great Hanse cities, which surround the Baltic Sea and which have so much history, so much architecture, so much culture in common.
And the great Central European culture, largely a product of the Habsburg Empire and Baroque architecture, is already experiencing a great revival.
The differences, which once gave rise to nationalistic wars, can now be celebrated as contributions to the cultural diversity, which is the glory of European civilization.
Solidarity is a concept to which we attach particular importance. Internally this has led to the principle of the social safety net, the idea that society will look after all its citizens by ensuring that they can live lives of reasonable comfort and dignity, even if they are unable to earn the income necessary to this end. And it is the same principle of solidarity - but this time with our fellow citizens of the world - which underlies our development and humanitarian commitment.
With this in mind I am proud that we have adopted as our anthem the final movement of Beethoven's great choral symphony, whose text is Schiller's "Ode to Joy". This contains the wonderful line:
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