ADDRESS BY H.E. PROF. GUIDO DE MARCO, PRESIDENT OF MALTA, TO THE PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA

Mr. President,

Hon. Members of Parliament,

I thank you for this opportunity to address the Parliament of the Republic of Albania.

Undoubtedly, this event underlines the friendship of our two states and their peoples.

We meet in this Assembly of Legislators and in so doing, pay homage to the role of Parliaments in providing for and safeguarding good governance.

I had the pleasure of visiting your country on three other different occasions. I treasure indeed my first visit here early in 1991 in my capacity as President of the United Nations General Assembly. It was the dawn of democracy in Albania.

Mr. President,

I feel very much at home in a House of Representatives.

I have spent thirty-three years of my life as an elected member of Parliament; of these thirty-three years I was for seventeen years in opposition, and sixteen years on the Government side, of which eleven years as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister first for the Interior and Justice and then for Foreign Affairs. I also sat in the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.

I can relate to and well understand the grave responsibilities that you shoulder. One need hardly stress the well-known uniqueness of your service to the community.

As elected representatives you are expected to advance and bring to the fore the needs, concerns and legitimate aspirations of the people that you represent. A parliamentarian has duties towards his constituents, towards his party, towards the nation and towards democracy.

The Parliamentarian's role thus necessarily requires leadership. You carry the heavy burden of deciding from time to time on the opportunity and method in pursuing issues. You have to operate within a framework of dialogue that seeks to evolve mutually acceptable solutions amongst partners professing different political convictions or representing distinct interests.

More importantly, our action determines not only the better management of the present, but conditions the future.

Mr. President,

Never in history has legislating for the future been an easy task. Today, however, we feel the forceful impact of this primary social role with greater concern, aware as we all are of the strong momentum of change in our times.

The challenge of change on the political, social and economic fronts is such that it often appears overwhelming. Yet only if we develop an acute awareness of the size and extent of this challenge can we adequately respond in a manner that does full justice to present and future generations.

An English poet wrote "No man is an island." Nor are countries islands detached or protected by the sea. We have to live with others and for others.

The temptation to build bastions, entrenching ourselves from the onslaught of the challenge of change is as strong and equally erroneous as that other temptation of dismantling all that gives our diverse communities their specific and particular identities. The challenge of change requires bridges that link the present to the future, that link our community to the rest of the world. Yet, bridges require solid foundations on both sides that they join. Undue erosion on any one side renders bridges unstable, generating fear in those traversing it and giving rise to panic reactions that halt the flow of passage.

Mr. President,

Legislators are bridge builders. In their pursuit to do that which is best for those who they represent, they have to take into account the concerns of their constituents, the wider interests of the state, the welfare of the geographic region and the seeking of that wider consensus that can support and consolidate peace and security at a regional and international level.

Throughout their existence, Malta and Albania have often paid a heavy price for their strategic location. We both know first hand the cost of regional instability. This is what makes us ideal partners in initiatives that seek to consolidate peace and stability in our respective regions, and within a wider context, in Europe and the Mediterranean.

In this effort, the skills of bridge building are as necessary at a regional and international level as they are on a national level. For the resolution of so many thorny disputes that still afflict our region requires greater reflection, dialogue and compromise for stability to be achieved.

Mr. President,

Our countries have suffered occupation by foreign powers. A dictatorship as you have endured in the past from your own countrymen carries an even greater suffering. The notion of democracy as an ideal and a political system is as old as the civilisations that have enriched the Mediterranean in past millennia. Yet, all too often, that aspiration that ensures good governance has evaded us. The present has nurtured in our generation the will to transform the notion of democracy from an aspiration to a tangible reality. Nonetheless, in all countries, democracy was, is and remains a fragile plant that needs constant nurturing in order to survive, to grow and to spread.

Our common resolve to consolidate dialogue and to seek mutually acceptable solutions at the national and international level is not a mere luxury – it is an essential fertilizer.

For only thus can democracy consolidate roots that provide anchorage.

We parliamentarians, through our commitment to democracy, have to provide that anchorage