It is a great pleasure for me and a great honour to be invited to this assembly and to have the opportunity to address the freely elected representatives of the Lithuanian people. I consider this gesture a great distinction for the country that I represent, which, even in darker times, always recognised the sovereignty and independence of Lithuania, and a mark of friendship that, being shown to the Portuguese Head of State, is extended to the Portuguese people as a whole.

I would therefore like to thank you for this opportunity and say how glad I am to see all the members of this assembly, a sentiment that is naturally shared by the representatives of the parties with seats in the Portuguese Parliament and the members of the Portuguese Government who have accompanied me on this visit.

I would also like to say how pleased I am with the results of the recent referendum on Lithuania’s accession to the European Union. It is not only your own future, it is the future of Europe itself that depends on these referendums. By saying yes to Europe, the Lithuanians have said yes to the road to democracy, freedom and development that they have been following since 1991. But, above all, you are showing that European integration is part of your future. These are sure signs that you have understood the message to be learnt from history and that you are strongly committed to guaranteeing that the 21st century will be the time when Lithuania asserts itself as a free, democratic, independent sovereign state.

As a former member of parliament myself, I know that the results achieved owe a lot to your work and initiatives. Parliaments play a decisive role in building democracy and pursuing the goals and fundamental political options that determine the course of a nation and ensure citizens’ cohesion and unity around a joint plan for society. I would like to congratulate you most warmly.

Members of parliament

We are privileged to be living in one of those times in which events begin to move faster and we are asked to give the right responses to the challenges that the present lays before us. Your accession to the European Union occurs at a particularly complex time in the history of Europe, in transatlantic relations and in the international community in general.

The transformations that began in 1989, with the end of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin wall and the independence of the Baltic States made it possible to re-unify Europe, a historic goal that the European Union has embraced and committed itself to achieving. With the signing of the Accession Treaties of the new Member States last month in Athens, the expected accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, and the acceptance of Turkey’s candidacy, we can be proud of the fact that we have turned an important page in contemporary history. A little more than fifty years after its creation, we must recognise that Europe has fully achieved its goal: uniting the European countries around a federative project, bringing peoples closer together, and guaranteeing peace and growing prosperity in our continent.

The European Union now covers practically the whole of Europe and has gained a new dimension and greater weight. But it is not just a question of a change of scale, because the European States are committed to strengthening European integration even further. We are living in a complex time of renovation for our European home. We must now lay the foundations of a Europe that will continue on the road to success. We must now instil in it the ambitions that will guarantee its longevity.

Mr President

Portugal, Greece and Spain were the first group of countries to rid themselves of closed, authoritarian regimes and benefit from the advantages of joining Europe. For Europe, this enlargement meant a renewal of the community’s dynamics and constituted a highly positive factor, in spite of some initial misgivings. The countries of southern Europe brought with them their history, their cultural heritage, their identity, the energy typical of young democracies and the ambitions of peoples who, once free of the yoke of authoritarianism, are intent on keeping pace with their time and anxious to assert themselves in the international community. In spite of the fact that they were much less developed than the Europe of the Nine, although their economies were backward and their societies were still going through the transition to democracy, with all the fragilities this entailed, the accession of the southern European countries was the right move at the right time.

For these countries in general and for Portugal in particular, membership of the European Community strengthened the foundations of democracy, brought us stability and created the right conditions for us to begin a long-needed cycle of development and modernisation. When we joined Europe, it gave us an unparalleled opportunity to assert ourselves on equal terms with our European partners and to reinforce our country’s image abroad. For Portugal, membership represented a chance to affirm our sovereignty and national identity. Even our relations with Spain, our only neighbour, changed when the countries joined the European Communities at the same time. Overcoming old rivalries, the Portuguese and Spanish were able to stand side by side, combining their efforts and playing an active role in working on a joint project. The result was new bilateral relations, which were strengthened by a firm, determined political will and took the form of closer political concertation and economic, cultural and social cooperation. I am recalling this because I think it is clear that it is within the framework of the concertation and solidarity of the European Union that the Member States can protect their own interests without losing their national identities and that, in fact, these identities are given more space in which to assert themselves.

Although we can draw some parallels between the accession of countries like Portugal to the European Union and the present enlargement, I feel that there are obvious limitations to this comparison. Firstly, because the Europe that Portugal joined about twenty years ago was no more than a budding single market, an incipient European Monetary System, in which there was no Common Foreign and Security Policy, matters of justice and internal affairs were not included in treaties and European citizenship was just a utopia. Secondly, because the European Economic Community consisted of only ten members, most of them old democracies with prosperous economies, almost all of them founder members of the Union, who were strongly united around the French-German axis, which played a decisive, uncontested role. Thirdly, because the world was divided into two blocs dominated by the threat of nuclear war in which the defence of Europe lay unequivocally in the hands of NATO and the international system seemed to be limited to a never-ending game between Washington and Moscow. Because of all these factors, I think I can say that we benefited from circumstances that were particularly favourable to our membership, facilitating it and partially explaining its huge success.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the current enlargement is much more complex and challenging and that the new members will be faced with greater difficulties, as their accession comes at a time of greater international volatility, marked by the phenomena of globalisation in which States and their populations suffer from new vulnerabilities and the whole international order is in a state of flux.

As in all times of change, the current situation inspires conflicting feelings: on one hand, concern, misgivings and a degree of anxiety, on the other hand, confidence and renewed hope. For my part, I still believe that this enlargement is an opportunity for Europe and I believe that we will be up to the challenge placed before us. European unification is a date with history that we cannot break. The old Europe of the Fifteen is counting on its new partners to bring a breath of fresh air to the community’s dynamics so that, together, we can make the 21st century a time for asserting the values of civilisation that we share.

In spite of the difficulties, there are signs that we are on the right track. And even with the recent controversies caused by the Iraqi question, I still regard them rather as a symptom of Europe’s growing pains than as signs of any breach. As I see it, the ongoing work in the Convention on drawing up a draft European Constitution is an unequivocal demonstration of our will to consolidate European unity and imbue the European project with a clearly political character.

The adoption of the European Constitution may represent a qualitative leap in the history of Europe’s construction, marking a decisive step on the way to creating a European Federation of Nation-States. The relative speed with which such a radically innovative idea of a Constitutional Treaty for Europe has progressed and become an accepted fact goes to show how the history of the European Union has accelerated extraordinarily, no doubt thanks to the catalytic effect of the current enlargement.

In my opinion, the EU should adopt a Constitution that enshrines the values and principles on which the Union is based as a common project for a society and as a community with a single destiny. A Constitution that recognises the principle of the social, economic and territorial cohesion of the Union; that clearly stipulates the principle of equality between Member States as the foundation of solidarity and ties of mutual trust between partners; that asserts a will to strengthen the Union’s common policies guaranteeing a future of prosperity, security and justice; that reinforces the bases of Economic and Monetary Union, encouraging the euro countries to develop even closer coordination of their economic policies for sustainable development and employment; that re-launches Common Foreign and Security Policy and European Defence Policy; and that provides the Union with a strong, balanced institutional architecture that will enable it to continue the political strengthening of Europe as a Union of States and Peoples, with respect for national identities and diversities.

I might remind the pessimists that the Maastricht Treaty, which gave a decisive boost to the development of European construction, was negotiated in the middle of a world crisis and an extremely difficult economic situation. And in spite of the adverse circumstances, Maastricht laid the political foundations of the European Union, introduced the concept of European citizenship, presented a clear plan for Economic and Monetary Union, strengthened the ties of solidarity between the Member States by creating Cohesion Funds, and enshrined in the treaties questions of foreign policy, justice and internal affairs, even though it used the ambiguous, provisional structure of the three pillars of European construction. Considering the time and the context, it was a courageous political decision based on a realistic but strong ambition for Europe that, in time, proved to be the right choice. All that remains is for us to wish for the same political courage, realism and ambition in the future European Constitution.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For a small or medium-size country like Portugal, I personally have no doubt that Europe is the right choice, with no other sure alternatives. I am also absolutely sure that there is no sense in the opposition that some are trying to establish between the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance. Indeed, thanks to the degree of economic and political integration that the European Union has achieved during its history, to the project for society that it represents for Europeans, to the new legal order and the ties that it has created between its members, in short, to what it represents and offers to European citizens, it cannot be compared to NATO, which had a different genesis and is a response to other realities.

NATO is and always will be a security organisation, and is itself also changing. It was set up during the Cold War when the world was divided into two blocs, dominated by the prospect of a war between east and west and by the nuclear threat, in which the interests of security and defence were an absolute priority. The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the new geo-political setup that resulted, created the right conditions for a new world order based on the values of democracy, freedom and equality. In this context, if, on one hand, the initial objectives of the North Atlantic Alliance were changed, it is important to recognise that Europe gained a historic opportunity to reunite the continent.

So, at a time when different projects are being re-created and re-structured, it is necessary above all to commit to mapping out the road to cooperation, complementarity and mutual trust. This is the only way to strengthen the pillars that have guaranteed Europe’s political stability, prosperity, social peace and security. There can be no doubt that the reinforcement of the European Security and Defence Policy reflects the legitimate aspiration of a Europe that wishes to continue its political integration and extend it to its foreign policy. But I am absolutely convinced that it is a challenge for which we have not yet found clear answers. I do feel, however, that there are two hazards that must be avoided when dealing with this question: on one hand, we should not ignore the vital role that NATO plays in the stability and security of Europe and, on the other hand, we must not prejudice our close transatlantic relationship, which is essential to the balance of the world order.

Mr President
Members of Parliament

We are living in a time of change marked by uncertainties, in which each and all of our democracies are faced with huge challenges. To prevent the reappearance of antidemocratic trends and the violence that they always bring, we must always value the role of Parliament as the unfailing centre of democratic legitimacy and as the ideal forum for debating the ideas and plans that will mould the future of all.

In this European adventure to which Portugal and Lithuania are both committed, national parliaments have a fundamental role to play in fostering the debate on the future of Europe and in creating a European public space that will constitute the true keystone of Europe and of European citizenship. It is never too much to insist on the need to further a European democratic culture, inseparably linked to citizenship, to closer ties between governments and those they govern and to closer relations between Europe and its citizens.

This is also a new field opening up for bilateral parliamentary cooperation and I am sure that it will enliven the fruitful contacts that I hope will be established between the parliamentarians represented here today and members of parliament from my country. The meeting of the Speakers of the Parliaments of the countries of the Enlargement of the European Union on the last 25 April in Lisbon, on the occasion of the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, is a milestone in strengthening inter-parliamentary relations. The conclusions adopted at the meeting point clearly to the need for closer contacts between national parliaments in order to reinforce their role in the construction of a Europe that has greater democratic legitimacy and closer proximity to its citizens.

Mr President

Portugal and Lithuania share the same options. They are now partners in the Euro-Atlantic structures. The reunification of the European democracies around shared principles and values forming a community with a single destiny will, I believe, be the great landmark of the 21st century. It is a historic opportunity, but it will also pose an immense challenge that I am sure both Lithuanians and Portuguese will be able to meet.

I would like to conclude by wishing every success to the cooperation between the Lithuanian and Portuguese parliaments in their work towards the consolidation of our democracies and, naturally, towards the future of a European Union based on a Constitution that all Europeans can be proud of.