President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova addressed this year’s Concordia Summit, which is held every year in parallel with the UN General Assembly.
In her address, Siljanovska-Davkova said that what the UN is for the world, the EU is for Europe, a multilateral project with one ultimate goal: peace on the continent, and stressed that this is achieved through enlargement based on the Copenhagen criteria: democracy, the rule of law, human rights and freedoms, and a market economy. She added that the European Union cannot defend multilateralism in the world if it betrays it on its own continent. According to her, enlargement is not a technical issue, but a test of whether the EU will choose the path of concordia or discordia, whether it will be a Union of rules and standards, or a Union of double standards and contradictions.
The President pointed out that we can do everything necessary in the economy, reforms, but still, our negotiations depend on our neighbors and concluded that unlike Scandinavia, which supported the Baltic countries for the EU, our neighbors often use a veto when accepting new members. She said that it is high time to make changes in the EU regarding the way of decision-making, which was recently emphasized by the President of the EC, Ursula Von der Leyen.
The topics of the Summit include global economy and trade; democracy, security and geopolitical risk; energy and transition; health opportunities and challenges; human rights and social progress, as well as innovative technology. This event is one of the most important forums where leaders from different sectors gather: statesmen, business elites, representatives of civil society and innovators.
Below is the integral address of President Siljanovska-Davkova.
Distinguished attendees, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Let me tell you that I am deeply honoured to address this year’s Concordia Summit. I think that this is a crucial moment both for our countries, as we are celebrating this year 30 years of friendship with the United States, and also for our world, a moment when the international order, which is based on universal rules, is passing through the Scylla and Charybdis of multi-polarity.
I sometimes say that I am still a professor of law, a professor of constitutional law on temporary work in politics, and I cannot avoid to stress some really frightening things. What I want to say at the very beginning is that no state or union, regardless of how economically, politically or militarily powerful it is, can survive without concordia. Concordia is followed and interconnected to peace, and without unity nothing can be reached.
That is why this year in my UNGA speech, but also here, I would like to stress that this is an important reminder in our time of discordia. It means that there is rivalry, conflict, disagreement at almost every level, and when I say every level, I think on geopolitical, geoeconomic and geo-cultural level. As you all know, this year we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.
It was a great moment in the life of the 1945 generation, but it is still very, very important. Why I would like to say something about this? Because instead of a single universally accepted international order, we are witnessing parallel orders. They are emerging, each of them has its own rules, also interests and values.
And in such conditions, the European Union, which is, as you all know, not a state, but a sui generis political system, is also facing a lot of challenges. And what maybe the United Nations sees to the world, the European Union for us Europeans sees to Europe – basically a peace project; its founders Robert Schuman, Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, wanted to put an end to wars and they believed in county and lasting peace. And probably their belief was never again a war, but we are facing war.
The same is happening with the United Nations. They appeared as a peace project and they are facing war. Even they were given or they won several Nobel Prizes for peace, 12 awards, I think.
But we are facing a war. So, for somebody like me, still believing in law, justice, morality, ethics, it is shocking what is happening because every day we hear a very strange notion that we still live in Thucydides world, especially international politics. Imagine Thucydides, who wrote the Peloponnesian Wars in the 5th century, is the most repeated person.
Why? Because his thoughts go hand by hand with the so-called real politics, in which the powerful do what they can and the weak – what they have to. Unfortunately, I am coming from a small country, I am the Macedonian president and I cannot understand this. Why? Because we are now in the 21st century and there are institutions like the United Nations, there are courts, also there is the European Union, there is the Council of Europe.
So, really, if the world is the same, there are a lot of questions. Are we may be devoted to Machiavellianism? Because, yes, for Machiavelli the goal was the most important, it does not matter what kind of goal it is, and each tool was justifiable, going or reaching towards the goal. The result we see, we see the result.
So, if the ultimate goal of the founding fathers of EU and the founding fathers and mothers of UN was peace on the continent and in the world, it has to be based on some criteria. Maybe you are not familiar with that, but actually the so-called Copenhagen criteria are the most important for becoming a member of EU or that is cradle of enlargement process. And what are they treating? Indeed, the basics, i.e. the rule of law.
There is no rule of law without separation of powers, without checks and balances, without participative political culture, without independent and objective media, without open and liberal economy and most of all without respected human rights and freedoms including our women’s rights as human rights. And really, I am shocked. How can it be that eighty years we have not seen a woman as a general secretary? Very, very strange.
And when I want to be cynical, I say that maybe after eighty years with men, maybe led or inspired by the god Mars, wars are something expected. Maybe we have to try with women with olive branch in the hand, women who respect life, women who, along with their children are always victims of wars. Maybe we could decide to be led by Venus.
I am very fond of James Brown’s song It is a Man’s World. I am speaking about music, but really this is a man’s world and I think that if we really intend to reform the United Nations, this is the last momentum to choose a woman for general secretary. And there is a difference this year in the United Nations because, as you probably know, Ms. Baerbock is the president of the General Assembly and something different is in the air.
So, sometimes I say we have to re-read Hemingway to see that maybe this is the right time to say farewell to arms. And on the question for whom the bell tolls to answer for us wherever we live because I am ashamed every day or every night looking at and seeing pictures like those in Ukraine, but also in Gaza. what is shocking is that even then there are double standards and those pictures remind me to Guernica of Picasso unfortunately.
Why I mention literature, music, movies because I deeply believe in the power of cultural policy and cultural diplomacy. Sometimes even they are more powerful than the traditional diplomacy. Also, what I think we have to do as soon as possible both on European level but also on the world’s level is to defend multilateralism instead multipolarity.
Yes, there are new actors on the world political stage, sometimes unpredictable but multilateralism gives chance to small and middle countries really to participate in decision making process. I am also criticizing the structure of the United Nations as it is now because it was created in 1945. We need more powerful General Assembly.
I know that in the General Assembly, because it is not only my vocation but also my love, small and middle-sized countries have initiated many interesting questions and proposals, and the powerful states, the most powerful were against these initiatives. The list is endless, starting with ecology, especially the Paris Agreements, but also many others. Indeed, imagine what a hypocrisy and cynicism is to speak about gender equality and not to have a woman at the top for 80 years.
When I mentioned double standards, I wanted to stress something that was said recently by Mario Draghi, who warned that the illusion of the EU’s influence based on its economic power is disappearing, reducing Europe to a passive observer rather than an active protagonist in a number of global processes. Instead of uniting more profoundly, the Union seems to be divided on very important issues. It is what I already mentioned, discordia, not concordia.
We have to be aware of that. I do not know if you are familiar, but let me just remind you that in 2005, 20 years ago, after decades of integration the idea of adopting an EU constitution was rejected in a referendum even in the countries that initiated the establishment of the EU and maybe that was the first sign of a crisis of integration. But what I want to stress is that if there are new actors and factors on the global stage; there is a sense to do something to enlarge the European Union because the EU is not the same as Europe.
Let me give you an example. I am coming from the so-called Western Balkans. I really do not know what this syntagma means, but it is used every day.
Why am I saying this? Because there is no Eastern. If there is Western, logically on the other side is Eastern Balkans. But there is no. It appeared in 2000s as an explanation that after the bloody war in Yugoslavia, the states could not, through the night, become neither members of EU nor members of NATO and that they were named or maybe qualified as a region that was like periphery of the European periphery.
Periphery of a periphery. Countries not included in NATO, not included in EU, but countries that were always, for centuries geographically, culturally and also historically part of Europe. So, our demand indeed is to become politically part of EU.
But even in the enlargement process there are double standards. For example, some of the countries became members of EU, while my country is a member of NATO, but is not a member of EU.
Slovenia first became a member both of EU and NATO. After that Croatia, Montenegro and Albania are also part of NATO and are now negotiating their membership in EU. What I want to stress is that if Copenhagen criteria are something that has to be respected, then normally the same standards have to be implemented for all candidates.
It was not done for my country. We began or we became candidates in 2005 and we are still waiting for Godot, I do not dare to say, to become deserved membership in EU. Why I am saying this? Because we got 17 positive reports about our steps towards EU in many areas in the so-called annual reports.
And imagine always we are facing something that is not concordia, but is discordia. Those neighbours which are members of EU now try to reopen some historical questions related to nation, language, culture and indeed to European Union like Trojan horse to realize these intense wishes. I say that if the region wants to become a member of EU, we have to be aware of the regional context.
Why? Because we have to support each other, to understand each other. How can we expect to be understood by those in EU if we are not ready to support each other? And I say that homo balcanicus will become homo politicus only if we understand each other and only maybe if we act or if we try to do what Sweden, Norway and Finland did for the Baltic states. They were the most supportive and the result is obvious.
So, my notion is or my proposal is that we should be a little bit like the Scandinavians. But our neighbours very often use veto because the membership in EU can be given not only after completing the negotiations. Previously there were chapters, now there are 6 clusters, but also there is a need for consensus.
If only one member is against, you cannot become a member of EU. I think it is the right time to change the procedure. Recently the President of the European Commission, Ms. von der Leyen, stressed this, but you know there is a need for consensus to introduce consensus for enlargement.
And indeed, smaller countries are not willing to do that. And then there is a problem. We are, how to say, stuck.
We could do whatever we want in economy, in social matters, education, but in ecology? But our position depends on our neighbours. That is what I want to stress. And I think that I have already mentioned the need to support each other.
Why I am stressing this? Because we, all of us, have responsibility towards the region and I think that bilateralisation is really a threatening instrument. What is happening to us now, our Macedonian experience, could repeat tomorrow, we expect it to be done by another country. I think that at this momentum, because I have mentioned wars I am afraid of, the most important also for the European countries, for those members of the EU, is to become aware that the problem or the question of enlargement is not just a question of bigger and more competitive EU.
Before I finish, the question of security of the region. Vacuum is very dangerous thing and there is no vacuum in geopolitics; someone will attempt to fulfil, to enter the vacuum. If we are hearing it every day, if we are listening from you politicians that we have to be resilient and that we may not allow some malignant forces to enter the region, multilateralism is the solution.
So, as soon as possible we have to become members of EU and then there is a possibility to be Europeanised inside, because you cannot learn democracy waiting in front of the door of EU. Then you encourage warriors and there are a lot of warriors in the world, also in our region.
I think that this is really momentum that has been used not only by the members, not only by the so-called Western Balkan states, but also understood by EU. Probably you know that all our countries including mine share the same international and security policy with EU. This is the last momentum I think to be understood and to become a member of EU.
Why I am saying it? Because we are facing exodus, the best students, the most qualified, probably many or some of them are here, are leaving the country. Led by “Ubi Bene, Ibi Patria”, searching for better life. If we are a member of EU or if we are on the serious path that guarantees membership, then we could inspire them to stay at home and work with us.
Thank you once again distinguished guests for listening to me. My last notion is that multilateralism is the most important issue, that we are still enjoying legitimacy to strengthen the power of the United Nations. I still believe in the United Nations, but in reformed United Nations.
We have to try to solve the problems in a transparent, participative way if we want peace in the world, because without peace nothing can be done. John Lennon once was aware of that and that is why I am saying maybe at the moment my last word is imagine. Imagine a better world.
Thank you.
