Integratlon of the Czech Republlc In West European

political and security structures and the problems ot regional
cooperatlon - basis and practice

Senators and deputies, ladies and gentlemen,

Let me thank you for giving me the exceptional opportunity to speak to you. This is the first time a Czech Foreign Minister has been allowed to address your honourable assembly. It is an honour for me, but I feel the epxanded responsibility.


The values are without a doubt shared values. Nowadays the fact is perceived as self-evident and consequently often happens that the differences in details and individual practical steps may seemingly predominate as great and serious ones. Such an impression is sometimes created by mass media which, in accordance with the principles of their work, stress small differences rather than great and principal agreements. Nevertheless, such a view must not prevail in our political perception.


Today, I would like to talk about the roots of our foreign policy - not only of its principal trends, but also of some details and individual steps. Above all, I would like to talk about our opinions on the integration process in the European Union, and about security issuss as well. Specifically I would also like to discuss how these opinions relate to the issue of cooperation in the Central European region. In conclusion I will attempt to locate our bilateral relations within this framework.

Our foreign policy is similar to our domestic policy in that it is based on the ideas of our reform. In the wider sense of the word, it embodies the ethos of the Czech nation, the roots of which can be sought in history, especially during the period after 1848. During that period our country, as well as Poland, went through the period of national revival and both nations reawoke in regards tolanguage, culture and especially politics. To understand some of the differences in the perception of particular political issues, it is worthwhile to, at least shortly, characterize the period. The Czech nation, deprived of its political and aristocratic elite, grew from below, from the plebeian class of burghers, farmers and tradesmen. Its first national movement was unpolitical, it promoted above all education and national consciousness. We were able to see the Polish example, which functioned as a catalyst of the development of Czech political thought. Nevertheless, Czech political thought retained a considerable portion of pragmatism, realism, responsibility and perhaps also cautiousness - features which can be seen in Czech policy of our time.

On the contrary, the Polish national revival sprang from the national aristocratic elite, which preferred more dramatic methods such as conspiration and uprising. The ethos of the Polish national revival, extensively recorded in the works of great Polish romanticists, marked the modern Polish national consciousness. Its traces could be observed not only in the tumultous years, such as the time of war, but also in the method of protest against the Communist totalitarian rule of the past years. Our more recent history was also different, regardless of whether we consider the birth and orientation or our renewed states after 1918, the unhappy period of strained relations immediately before and after the Second World War or the manifestations of opposition against the Communist regime, which emerged in different periods, which had different forms and different destiny. Nevertheless, such manifestations illustrate a very important feature of our national existence - the longing for freedom, the feature which both our nations share and which they have, together with the wiil to survive, retained in spite of all the misfortunes and risks of history.

At present, especially after 1993, when the Czech state entered a new chapter of its history as an independent country. The policy building the state on civil principle, on the responsibility of each citizen for himself, for his family, for his community and for the state, exactly in this order, enjoys the support of the majority of our population. Besides such values as freedom and democracy, we therefore have an inborn feeling of responsibility for ourselves, which is conspicuously, sometimes even manifestly present also in our foreign policy.

Our principal aim, for which we do not want to seek any alternatives and the fulfillment of which we perceive as our irreplaceable role, is the full-fledged membership in the European Union. The wider, primary basis of such decision is the contemplation of the European space and the seemingly obvious statement: we, and of course also you, are in Europe, even in its very centre. To continue to apply this geopolitical concept only to the countries which have been lucky enough not to be included in the Soviet bloc would be an ominous resumption of the approach from the past. Less obvious and the more difficult is to say that Europe ends somewhere and its would be foolish to pretend this is not so. I think that we have the right to expect both conclusions from our partners.

We regard our memebrship in the Union as an entirely logical outcome of our location, our history, our values as well as to the end of bipolarity, which we have unquestionably helped to achieve. On the other hand, we are aware of the fact that our merits and our knocking on the door of Brussels will not transform our country into a developed state of the European type. This may be achieved only by our own effort. We cannot be accepted among the developed states, we must become one of them. Therefore any membership in the community of developed West European states, such as the European Union, must be formally based upon acceptance, we have never ceased to stress that the process of integration takes place above all at home. This is also the reason for our hitherto sober approach to the concrete symbols and rituals of the procedure of acceptance in Brussels, which, let me stress this once more, does not imply that we flout them, it only testifies to our increased concentration on the demanding domestic process.

However, we do not consider the form of the European Union an obvious fact and thanks to the obligatory character of our intention we feel not only entitled, but- also obliged to consider what the Union looks like and in which direction it develops. We have been following the disscussion concerning the future form of the European Union, the discussion which is of vital importance for us. Of course, we cannot be the only subject of the discussion. The interest of our state, but also the feeling of shared responsibility for the future fate of Europe makes us take an active part in it. Our historical experiance enables us to introduce some issues which are relevant and which, seen from another point of view, need not be so striking.

Another priority of our foreign policy is our full-fledged membership in the NATO. This aim also complies with the logic of our development after November 1989. It also involves the question of our identity and the feeling that we share the values which form the basis of Western Europe, as well as our readiness to undertake a share of responsibility for the security and stability in our region and in the whole world. We regard the increased importance of the security dimension to the European Union as a positive feature, but, however, we do not see any alternative to NATO. The transatlantic character of the Alliance was the key factor of the changes in Europe which have brought freedom for so many, ourselves included. The active political and military presense of the United States in Europe is therefore for us one of the most important safeguards to security and stability in our part of the world. But again, when speaking about the security of our country, we realize that our own security must be ensured by ourselves. The Alliance may function as an additional safeguard, but without the awareness of our own responsibility for the security, we will not be safe and, moreover, we will have no value as an ally for any alliance.

This is one of the resons why we have so sincerely welcomed the Partnership for Peace project, which opened the space for our own military and political activity in the name of the future alliance. I am glad that in the course of my stay in Poland I will be able to visit for the first time the military exercises organized under the Partnership for Peace project and see our soldiers participate in the exercises here in Poland.

To change the subject, I will now talk about some issues of regional and bilateral cooperation, which I would like to discuss in light of the considerations I have already mentioned. For each state, regional cooperation, and especially cooperation with neighbours, is one of the key tasks of foreign policy. For a small state, such as the Czech Republic, and moreover a state located at an important European crossroads, success in this field is of vital interest.

After the great changes in our region in 1989, our states started to communicate freely and intensely. The grouping, later called the Visegrad Group, successfully managed to dismantle the COMECON and the Warsaw Treaty. It managed to attract the attention of global public to the danger arising from the continuing existence of the Soviet Union. It was the time of great deeds, associated with the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

The period of dismantling has started to give way to the period of construction. I am glad that the Visegrad Group has been gradually transformed into the Central European Free Trade Zone with the nice abbreviation CEFTA. Vis-a-vis our principal tasks associated with the integration into the European Union, it would be difficult for us to find a better new embodiment for it. For centuries we have known that trade connects nations (often contrary to politics). We should bear it in mind especially today, when we are seeking new forms of regional cooperation in our complicated and dynamic times. Often I hear the objection that we should not seek more intensive political integration instead of a commercial one. I know that the great effort necessary for the removal of the barriers to trade and for the establishment of the framework for intensive economic contacts may be daunting. However, we should realize how lasting results as concerns cooperation and friendship between states and nations this may bring about. Let us not be tempted by the ease with which meaningless phrases about political cooperation are pronounced (to be soon forgotten) at various summits. We have already heard so many of them! We must not put up with this, because the easiest and most impressive ways are seldom the best ways.

It is understood that cooperation in the field of economy and trade does not exclude fruitful political cooperation. What I am trying to say is that the CEFTA creates a natural basis for the formulation and articulation of our common interests, which need not be purely eeonomic. Nevertheless, I must say that at the present moment we cannot imagine any regional arrangement as an alternative to our European and Atlantic choice. I do not think, chiefiy for the reasons I have mentioned in the first part of my address, that such arrangement could serve as a mediator ot our aceceptance to the structures.

My address to the Polish Parliament would not be complete without mentioning bilateral Czech-Polish relations.

Also in the bilateral sphere, I give priority to economic cooperation. Its recent decline can in most cases be attributed to the drop in the planned, dictated trade exchange within the Eastern Bloc, nevertheless we cannot be satisfied with the current situation. In many cases this implies abandoning the already established relations, which could remain profitable in the future. I am glad that while I am here talking to you, our Deputy Prime Ministers responsible for economic issues, Mr. Kocarnik and Mr. Kolodko, meet to carry out a comprehensive survey of our economic relations and to seek ways of their speedy intensification.

An increasingly important role in our bilateral relations will be played by the cross-border cooperation, including the cooperation between regions, communities, individual firms and civic associations. In this respect, we have made a concrete step forward by signing the Agreement on cross-border cooperation. An undisputable success and at the same time also a proof that "great" international problems can be suitably interconnected with "small" concrete and mutually profitable projects in border regions is the envisaged agreement on the payment of instalments of Polish balance by means of ecologic investments.

I cannot omit another important aspect of our relations, which is the existence of Polish minority, the most numerous minority group in the Czech Republic. Its fate has been marked by all historical ups and downs undergone by our states in this century. Under the Communist rule, its development was unnatural, deformed by totalitarian social schemes. In accordance with the civil principle, the fundamental principle of our state, we attribute the highest value to the Individual rights and freedoms of a citizen as such. However, we realize that from the point of view of members of a national minority, the possibility to develop their own national identity is an integral part of their civil rights.

By way of conclusion, let me say once again what the basis of our foreign policy is. Our aim is a friendly, mutually profitable and stabilizing cooperation with our neighbours and gradual integration into West European structures. We want the West to be prepared to accept such cooperation from us, but in the first place we ask ourselves, what can we do to be prepared for it, to be trustworthy and attractive.