Lennart Meri, The President of Estonia

Address at University of Washington Faculty Club

October 31, 1995

Toomas Hendrik Ilves-

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I am the ambassador of Estonia to the United States. Can you hear me? It’s an honor and a pleasure to be here at the University of Washington. And to be here with the President of Estonia, a man who has done so much for my country, a man who has been a scholar, an ethnographer and a filmmaker who has played such an instrumental role in maintaining the consciousness of the Estonian nation, through its darkest periods, through his writings. Reminding all of us at that we still have our own language and later as that consciousness grew, it was Lennart Meri who galvanized the country to fight against the ecological waste that was threatened and then finally as we began the difficult but notably, peaceful struggle for independence it was Lennart Meri as our foreign minister that brought us closer and closer to the countries of the West and the countries that valued our freedom. It was very much the work of Lennart Meri that we were taken seriously at a time when so much effort was spent to keep people from taking us seriously. And later we are all very grateful that Lennart Meri chose to run for President and become our president and lead the nation of Estonia to, back to where it was and where it had been cut off from when we were occupied 55 years ago. It’s my honor to present the President of Estonia, Lennart Meri.

Lennart Meri-

Ladies and Gentlemen it is a privilege to speak here at the University of Washington. This university is home to several of Estonia’s greatest friends several of whom are in the audience today. So it is my special pleasure to be here among you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to speak to you today about Baltic security, at the beginning of this trip I met with your Vice President Mr. Al Gore in Washington. We talked at length about security issues and I will tell you that I told him if during the Cold War the fate of Berlin became a kind of litmus test for western security, then the Baltic States play that role now. I would posit that today’s post Cold War, post Cold War world we cannot speak of European or to be more exact Transatlantic security without also articulating a policy on the security of the Baltic States. The two are inseparably linked. Just as any threat to the freedom of Berlin then meant a threat to the West, any potential to challenge the sovereignty of the Baltic States now would challenge the very security of the Transatlantic community.

We, in Estonia, are seeking to enhance our security in two ways. The first of these is integration into Europe more specifically into Western security organizations. There has been a lot of discussion about the integration of Estonia and other Central European countries into Europe. We have belonged in Europe for more than seven hundred years already, how could we possibly integrate into an entity where we have essentially established ourselves over these centuries? When one walks about the old town of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one can feel Europeaness radiating from the architecture, from every medieval house and every church steeple. Not only was the Tallinn one of the most notable Hanseatic cities in the present state of affairs, it, in the present state of affairs, it is one of the best preserved cities of the whole merchant league. The poetry of stone, and I like this phrase especially, the poetry of stone perpetuates itself. As for society, it is perpetuated and maintained through the legal system. Ladies and gentlemen, Estonia has been part of the Roman/Germanic legal system for over seven hundred years. This legal basis is even more important than well preserved gothic style or classicism. This legal basis is a nursery where everything else springs up. It is a prerequisite, the basis, and the very grandeur of the survival, the development and the success of our modern state.

So, we cannot speak about integration into Europe. What we can speak about is integration into all European security and economic structure. And that does not mean creating a new situation, but rather, restoring a normal Europe. It is not so much an economic or security issue as it is a matter of political judgment. Europe needs strong democratic leaders of the caliber of the Defaulle and Adenauer who decades ago were able to make far reaching decisions, who were not afraid to decide. When we speak of integration with all European structures we have the European Union in matter, nature in mind. These two organizations are like flip sides of the same coin, the one side tells us the currency and the other the name of the state, holding and protecting that currency. We see the European Union and NATO as complementary and mutually perfecting each other, the whole mark of the European Union is prosperity and that of NATO is security. What they have in common is stability. Shifting into a world of mathematical terms, stability is the intersection of the European Union and NATO. In view of this mathematical image, Estonia’s aim is obvious, entrance into both NATO and the European Union, which should happen as early as possible and as late as necessary.

I will turn now the second way we are seeking to enhance our security and that is by normalizing relations with Russia. Normalization for us means establishing the same kinds of relations with Russia as we enjoy with the United States or Germany or Sweden. We have made considerable progress towards normalization during the past year. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia and Tallinn came under foreign rule, in the very days in which the same fate befell Paris. Last year in August, in an historic deal that was brokered in part by the United States, the Russian Federation withdrew the last occupying troops from our country. Some problems associated with the withdrawal remain, but we are working them out through regular dialogue with our counterparts in Russia. Now we feel the same sense of enhanced security and elation, some would say bittersweet elation, that France too felt after its liberation. Some problems including the border, remain. I am confident, however, that despite internal developments in Russia and with the help of the West, Estonian/Russian relations will take a turn for the better.

I have spoken of enhancing security by way of integration with Europe and normalization of relations with Russia. There is another way that we are working to feel more secure and that is by strengthening our economic potential. As far as we see it, every dollar invested in Estonia, is a dollar spent on defense and security. You have all heard about our economic reform program hailed by the IMF and the World Bank as among the most successful in Central Europe. It is no wonder that some observers refer to Estonia as a modern Wirtschaftswunder.

On a foreign economic front, we have earned the justified reputation of free willing liberalism. We, Estonians, are a modest people. So we prefer to refer to ourselves using the term coined by Newsweek, by the Newsweek magazine not long ago, as "the little country that could." Others say that our economic policies would make even Milton Friedman blush. These policies have borne fruit. Foreign investments are up as our exports, trade has also reorientated. If in 1991 when we reinstated our independence some 90% of our trade was with the East, then today 65% of our trade is with European Union and other western states. Our currency is among the most stable in Scandinavia and our foreign currency reserves have more than tripled since the kroon, our national currency was introduced, in 1992. Our internal reorientation to a free market economy is going well. Over 70% of all state enterprises have been privatized. We have a balanced state budget and actual growth in GDP, 6% this year to be exact. Estonia has a flat 26% income tax and personal incomes are rising steadily. A statistic that you can see most clearly in the smiles on peoples’ faces. We also have full repatriation of profits for foreigners doing business in Estonia. Tourism is also growing phenomenally. Last year we played host to 3 million tourists and we are expecting more this year. I invite, to join them, I invite each and every one of you to come see our little miracle for yourself. Thank you and I am ready for some questions.

Ambassador Ilves- If there are any questions, the president would be glad to answer.

Professor Christopher Jones- Mr. President, do you anticipate Finnish membership in NATO Alliance and the European Union?

President Meri- Well, I would be very glad if the Finnish Ambassador would be on my place and give you an answer. You have been following the Finnish politics and I think that you can feel that Finland has taken her lessons from the two wars she was forced to fight for her independence. I think that, that’s all I am going to say, it’s not for me to answer for the Finnish defense policy.

Ambassador Ilves- And if people could also state their name and affiliation, we would be glad. Thank you.

Question: Yes, my name is…, I am a professor of Economics here in the United States down in Oregon. My question is now in the change of governments do you see any major change in the policy that Estonians are pursuing.

POE- I am seeing only a change for better.

Question:

POE- Negatively.

Question:

POE- Yes.

Question:

POE- I don’t see anything that should be changed except of course for the mechanics that, you see, we have a lot of European standards which must be introduced and so on. But the legislation adopted by the Estonian parliament from the very first day was orientated to become a member of the European Union. So in a sense we have much less to do than a typical European country with traditional legislation which should be made, let’s say, feasible with the European Union demands. In this respect, Estonia is in a far better position; we have so far not made any mistakes in our legislation. And if there have been made mistakes, well there has been a president to correct them.

Question:

POE- We had a fine professor, Professor <Graner?> who himself was a Swede born in Finland and worked for a long time in Tartu University, known also as a Dorpat University, who began his monographic work in the following way: Estonia is situated in this part of Europe where central Europe become step by step the Nordic Europe. Which is true in every sense, in the historical, in the traditional, the cultural sense, linguistically… You know that even the coat of arms of Estonia has been introduced in 1219 and is a part of the Danish coat of arms and at the same time is part of the British coat of arms. Well, we have been a very active member of the Nordic community and I should remind you that from the days of Tacitus so I have read at least Tacitus we have always had a Swedish minority settled in Estonia, she was forced to leave Estonia only during the last year of the Second World War, just to escape the second Soviet Occupation and to switch over to Sweden. So there are a lot of emotional ties and legal ties which makes us much more of a Nordic country than it is usually believed. But, there is no doubt in Sweden that we are very, very closely attached to Sweden.

Question: Are Estonians moving towards a western investment…?

POE- The reintroduction of the Estonian national currency was done in June 1992 by the Estonian bank. The Estonian bank is working under special law; this law is much more conservative than any law in the United States. It is absolutely impossible for Estonia to make, to repeat, the error which had such, so unfortunate results for the Latvian economy.

Question: Privatization

POE- You know, I will not say that this is an easy task. We have only one example of men’s history where a new farmership has been created and that is here in the United States. But in quite, with a quite different background, because the European immigrants coming in the 19^th century to settle here in the United States had, to a certain extent, an agricultural background that just came, also from Estonia. A farm, a European farm at least, is a creation which is living for centuries. It means it does not have to solve the problem of starting capital, but I can assure you that the reprivatization of state owned collective farms is progressing and the agricultural output is rising in Estonia. It is without any doubt, one of the most difficult tasks to solve.

Question

POE- I am afraid I couldn’t hear the second part of your question.

Repeating of Question

POE- The negotiations have lasted quite a long time. And during this time, Estonia has had more than once opportunities to say that, she is willing to negotiate, in good faith, in good faith, and, the time is now in a sense in our favor, because if the negotiations will go on it will be more or less clear that they, that the Russian side, would like to use the negotiations as a political factor to, to exert some political pressure on Estonia. That, again, will not be in Russia’s interests. Russia is very interested in cutting through her economic and perhaps political ties with the Western countries. So a certain point of balance is reached and both sides, I am rather optimistic, can sign an agreement without losing their face.

Ambassador- I think we will take two more questions.

Question

POE- One of the main problems of this system, was that it was able to reproduce itself with the capital gathered in the past, then it reached a point where it was able to reproduce itself with, let’s say, literally eating the present and it collapsed when it began to reproduce itself on behalf of the future. So the ecological problems on the territory of the former Soviet Union are enormous and they are a heavy burden for Estonia because Estonia was the front line which means we had far more army units in Estonia than let’s say, an inner Russian region. We have been successful in closing the Russian naval base in Paldiski where the Soviet army had her biggest, her biggest, school for training, for training officers for their nuclear submarine fleet. That was one of the major problems for Estonia because the nuclear waste in the town of Paldiski and around the town of Paldiski was of course, not a local problem; it affected all of the Scandinavian countries and we got a lot of help from the United States and from the Nordic countries. We have, without any doubt, a lot to do to clean up our country so that it will have the same, friendly landscape as we, we had before the war. We have, we have a critical area where the oil shale was produced, the oil shale was produced in a typically colonial form, and what is especially typical the price of producing one kilowatt was—if we can speak about prices in the Soviet system, where a price was never a real price—well the price that Estonia had to spend a kilowatt hour of energy was 1.1 kopecks. But the price to sell electricity was 0.9 kopecks. Which means the more Estonia worked, the less the current went. That was something that which is, cannot be understood, but the main consequence was that it produced enormous waste they are partly harmful, the ashes is a certain level of radioactivity, but, but we have already good results 10 years ago, the phosphorite pollution in Estonia was about 950,000 metric tons it is reduced more than 50% now. We don’t use chemical fertilizers, you know that the Soviet Union was using them twice as much as in America it was the main reason it had to buy her bread in America. Thank you.

Ambassador- Last question in the back.

Question:

Ambassador- The question was if you started a new film project today, what would it be and why.

POE- I’m not thinking because I don’t know the answer. I was just thinking that an hour ago I spent some time in your museum. And, and when I was visiting for the very first time in my life, the United States that was, that was in March/April 1979, I spent quite a lot of time in Los Angeles. I never saw Hollywood or even the downtown. I was sitting in a small room writing the script for my next film which was a film about the boat. It was an old idea, an idea which came to me during my expeditions in Siberia. I suddenly saw that there is a clear pattern that at the dawn of our culture, the cultures were mainly concentrated on the rivers. But culture means an exchange of ideas, an exchange of a knowhow. When the time of the great rivers were exploited, the main cultural centers shifted to such areas where the sea line, in respect to the hinterland if you understand this expression, was most favorable. That was the second stage. That was the Mediterranean stage. It all ended with ecological collapses, but that is not the main point. The main point is that water and the ways water played the same role as nowadays information channels are playing. But the carrier of information was the boat. And what is striking is that in the Neolithic times, the Mesolithic times and even if you go deeper, the ax, the Neolithical ax, has undergone a number of changes. It was improved, and improved and improved. But the boat was from the very first days, it had from her very first days, her ideal shape. The boat was the essential means for creating an open society in those days. And the information channels were of course the huge coastlines. In a way, the Kola peninsula in Europe, the Arctic coast line, the Bering bridge, and the Pacific coast line should be regarded as one huge information channel. And that was so fascinating, and I was so happy writing this script, which was of course was forbidden in Moscow. Well, someday perhaps I will come back. Thank you.