ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF MALTA

Address by H.E. Prof. Guido de Marco President of Malta to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe On the Occasion of the third part session of the 2000 Ordinary Session Strasbourg, 27 June 2000

It is for me a privilege, and may I add, a pleasure, to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. For this, my first visit to the Council of Europe as Head of State of my country, is an exercise down memory lane.

I first came to Strasbourg as a member of Malta's delegation in 1967 and sat in the Assembly for almost twenty years, up to 1987. I came here as a young M.P. when I was thirty-five years old. I left this Assembly on becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Interior and Justice when I was fifty-five years young.

One of my first acts as Minister for the Interior and Justice was that of presenting to Malta's House of Representatives a bill incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights in domestic legislation.

In my first twenty years in Strasbourg, I saw the maturing of the European idea. The scars of war were being removed, becoming relics of the past. Spain and Portugal were still one-party states, Greece was having problems with democracy and the Colonels were in power, Turkey had its issues with the military, but those twenty years saw also the return of Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal to democracy and to witness their great contribution to the Council of Europe. I remember listening to Mario Soares, then foreign minister of Portugal, and saw the bust of Salvador de Madariaga being inaugurated by H.M. the King of Spain.

As an active member of the Cultural Affairs Committee, we studied and understood the revolt of youth in Europe and across the Atlantic in the concluding years of the 1960s. We witnessed events in Prague and the harsh application of the Breshnev Doctrine in Central and Eastern Europe. As a member of the Legal Affairs Committee, the evolution of human rights, the effectiveness of the Court, as well as the first experiences in the exercise of the right of individual petition, were fundamental to my belief in the Council of Europe, as a beacon of democracy and rule of law.

The Council of Europe and this Assembly in particular were a constant source of encouragement and support for my country when facing difficulties.

I served also in the Committee for Rules and Procedure, getting well acquainted with the rules governing this Assembly.

In those first twenty years, I saw the Assembly moving from barrack-style premises to this beautiful palace dedicated to Europe. I attended debates of the highest standard and heard parliamentarians, politicians, and statesmen setting the seal to democratic values, stability, and security in Europe. In representing a European state in the Mediterranean, I often took the floor in this Assembly promoting the Mediterranean dimension in the Council of Europe's activities.

On the 5^th of May 1990, Europe Day, I was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. I returned to Strasbourg as a member of the Committee of Ministers and I took part in that great renaissance of the Council of Europe which witnessed Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Russian Federation becoming members of the Council of Europe in quick succession.

My membership of the Committee of Ministers came to an end on the 26^th of October 1996 when the party which I formed part of went into Opposition. This had one positive effect: I was again appointed to form part of Malta's delegation to the Council of Europe.

It was a return to my roots. It was a different Assembly that I returned to from that which I had left ten years before. Next to me was a Russian parliamentarian and close to my place sat a delegate from Ukraine. The monitoring of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, the restructuring of the Court of Human Rights and the globalisation of the economy were the main items on the agenda.

I had the distinguished privilege of being elected as the first Chairman of the newest and largest Committee of this Assembly, the Monitoring Committee.

As such, together with my colleagues in the Committee and with the very able assistance of the Council of Europe's Secretariat and also of Bruno Haler, the Clerk of our Assembly, we started giving a philosophy to monitoring, linking our parliamentary process with that of the Committee of Ministers, and creating the adequate procedure to monitoring.

In September 1998, the Nationalist Party was returned to office, and I was back as foreign minister.

Seven months later, I was elected President of the Republic.

You can now perhaps better understand why I refer to my coming to Strasbourg as an exercise down memory lane.

I want to speak to you today not so much about memories but about the future, the future of the Council of Europe. We are in all forty-one states, so far. We extend from Rejkyavik to Vladivostok, form Helsinki to Valletta, from Lisbon to Tbilisi. Never, never have the peoples of Europe been brought so together in their pluri-millennial history than they are today in this Assembly. We are united behind principles which guided the founding fathers of this Council fifty-one years ago.

Between 1989 and 1999, we witnessed the renaissance of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe with twenty-one states, who had for fifty years or more been denied democracy and the rule of law, return to and uphold these values.

The Council of Europe is 800 million strong in population. And yet we have to acknowledge that whilst we have possibly the best European Parliamentary Assembly in existence, a Court of Human Rights which has established itself as a pace-setter in the development of fundamental human rights with a dimension reflecting itself beyond its jurisdiction, there is a political weakness in our Council.

Of the forty-one member states, fifteen are members of the European Union, another thirteen have applied to join, of whom twelve, including my country, are involved in negotiations for enlargement, and at least three other states, members of this Council, envisage applying for membership in the not too distant future.

The European Union, because of its economic relevance, in particular through its single market and single currency, the emergence of a Common Foreign and Security Policy, its elected parliament, its monthly meetings of the Committee of Ministers and at least six-monthly Summits, has become a strong political force in Europe with a global political and economic image and effectiveness. This is a reality which we have to face. This reality impacts itself mostly in the relevance and effectiveness of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

We cannot change realities. But we can make of realities a challenge and make of this challenge an opportunity, indeed a unique opportunity. The participation of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, and possibly further expansion, has made of this Council of Europe a realisation of what Mitterrand once described as the "Greater Europe".

Quoting from Edvard Schevarnadze's interview to the Moscow News of the 4^th of March, 1990,

"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has, in my view, every opportunity of becoming the future pan-European Parliamentary forum. Let us also take the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers made up of the foreign ministers regularly meeting twice a year. This could act as a basis for the corresponding organ of a future unified Europe."

The relationship between the European Union and the Russian Federation, and for that matter the Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, do not, in the foreseeable future, at least, envisage membership but rather one regulated by bilateral treaties and regulations. On the other hand, the concept of a Greater Europe materializes itself in the Council of Europe. It is in this Council that our common heritage, our common interests, and our common concerns, can best be conserved, developed and discussed. Russia and the Caucasian states believe in the European dimension which the Council of Europe so effectively embodies. The Council of Europe needs the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasian states in this particular moment of European renaissance.

This Parliamentary Assembly will continue to be the voice of a Europe of values, a coagulant of democratic security, the conscience of human rights.

The Committee of Ministers, if I may suggest, requires a sense of re-direction. Ministers of foreign affairs of the European Union as well as ministers from applicant countries are taken up by the on-going activity within the European Union itself. But it will be very difficult indeed, and may I say, a serious mistake, were we to ignore the challenge of a Greater Europe in which a very relevant part of Europe is involved and which, for its own valid reasons, does not form part or has not applied to join the European Union.

In this very Assembly, on the 6^th of July 1989, President Gorbachev first elaborated the concept of our common European home, "the architecture of our ‘common home', on how it should be built and even on how it should be ‘furnished'."

Ignoring this reality can have lasting damaging effects. The Mediterranean cannot be an impenetrable sea-wall. The Mediterranean as a great divide spells disaster for future generations. The Council of Europe through its ring of Mediterranean states can be a positive force for dialogue and understanding in the region. For the Mediterranean is a sea which unites us as well as our destinies.

I have, Mr President, in this statement underlined my vision for the Council of Europe. It is the vision of one whose views, formation, and politics have been largely influenced by this Council which is perhaps the best University for politicians, whether they be undergraduates, first year politicians as I was in 1967 when I first sat in this Assembly, or post-graduate students as I was when I returned here in 1997. For, I believe in this Council of Europe. This is not an exercise in rhetoric, it is an exercise in everyday politics. For democracy, the rule of law, fundamental human rights, are a very sensitive plant which require our daily attention. We want 800 million Europeans to believe that their future depends on that democratic stability and security and a closer unity that this Council does promote.

The Prime Minister of a newly independent Malta, Dr Giorgio Borg Olivier, addressing this Assembly on Malta's accession in May 1965, said of this Council:

"Here we feel truly at home, joined with other members of this family who share our basic concepts and philosophy and who are prepared to build on the native heritage of this, our Europe."

May I add, Mr President and colleagues, that also I feel here truly at home.

Of the fifty-one years of this Council, I have shared with it thirty years of my political life. Being back to the Council of Europe today is not only an exercise down memory lane. It is an exercise in the future, our common future.