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The full text of the lecture by President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus (1998-2003, 2004-2009) at the Institute of International Relations (Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University) on November 24, 2010. The President’s visit to the University was organized by the Institute of World Policy.Ladies and Gentlemen,

Very soon, on January 13, we will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the tragic events in Vilnius when the Soviet tanks literally crushed unarmed and peaceful civilians at the TV Tower.

On August 24, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Independence in Ukraine.

Can you believe that it’s been twenty years since we broke free from the Soviet Union – the empire that sent millions of its own citizens to die in gulags and starved millions of your people to death.

Twenty years of freedom is an entire epoch and most of you are the children of this epoch.

It seemed back then when the Soviet Union was crumbling to pieces that the world could not change more drastically. But today, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence, the pace and extent of change is still incredible.

It seemed back then when the Cold War system collapsed that freedom and democracy would reign and that governments throughout the world would settle their mutual issues peacefully and by respecting the principles of international law.

Yet, just two years ago, we saw these principles trampled in our neighborhood, Georgia, and only the actions taken by the European Union and your President’s resolute intervention stopped the Russian tanks just 20 kilometers away from Tbilisi.

The world has not become simpler, far from it! Yes, there is more freedom and more democracy. According to Freedom House, there are now 89 free democracies compared to 61 countries that were Free two decades ago.

Regrettably, the wave of democratization has not changed the basic set-up of the international system. Although we keep promoting freedom and democracy as the overarching values, states that lack democracy still have a very strong say in the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Ukraine cannot express its voice as it should as a country with a population of 50 million and one of the best advancers on the democratic scale over the past twenty years.

The world is still controlled by a lever frame that reflects the post-war balance of powers when the number of dependent states was two or three times higher than that of independent ones.

But bearing in mind that independent states account for as much as 46 percent of the overall number of countries in the world, compared to only 24 percent of dependent states, they should be the ones to set the rules of the game.

The map of the European Continent – now almost entirely painted in the colors of freedom and liberty – shows the new order of democracy.

What is even more, the European nations have created such a multi-level system of checks and balances and mutual integration that the use of force in Europe is inconceivable.

Therefore, whenever they ask me if it is worthwhile joining the European Union and NATO, I always ask in return: Is there a better place for a country which believes in democratic ideals and is committed to building a future for the world, together with the prevailing majority of democracies?

The fact that the number of democratic states has approached 50 percent in the past twenty years sends a clear message to everybody as to where the world is moving. Being an outsider in this process of transformation and ignoring the world’s strongest democratic structures leads to self-isolation and self-exclusion from global issues.

I would probably think and talk differently if a real alternative to the European, Western democracy had emerged in the past twenty years. Attempts to create such an alternative were numerous, especially in our region. Just think, for instance,
of the Commonwealth of Independent States or the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and other similar structures. Of the numerous examples, only the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, all six member states of which are considered to be not free, could probably claim to be taking the initiative from the European Union and NATO in shaping the future of the world.
On second thought though, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has only three advantages over Western structures – territory, population and mineral resources. Whether these advantages are still relevant in the 21st century is for you to decide. As for me, the mere fact that the standard of living in Lithuania, a small country with actually no mineral resources, is twice as high as the average in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states is the best answer to me.

Would Lithuania have achieved this without joining the European Union and NATO?

Today I often hear claims that it is the external factors that have played the crucial role in the transformation of post-soviet states. They say that the Baltic economies are growing only thanks to the gigantic support from the European Union, and that Georgia has suddenly started doing well only thanks to American billions.

But then why don’t we see impressive economic achievements in Belarus, Central Asian countries or the occupied Abkhazia – countries that receive hundreds of millions worth of funding from Russia?

I am confident that the central role for the success of domestic and foreign policies is played by the quality of governance, which is inseparable from the level of freedom and democracy in a country.
No matter what my opponents might say, it is hardly possible to spend your own or someone else’s money efficiently if there is no democracy, if the government does not talk to the people and if the decision-making mechanism is flawed.

In many post-soviet countries, slightly different opinions prevail. The belief in a “firm hand” and “good ruler” is deeply rooted there. And Lithuania is no exception.
But if we take a look at our major achievements of the past two decades, we will see that all of them were made not by unilateral decisions but through consensus among all political forces and with a strong backing from the general public. Membership in the European Union and NATO is probably the best illustration.
It might sometimes seem very easy to decide on membership in the European Union. But that is not so! Membership is conditional on fundamental structural transformations that change drastically the acceding country’ architecture and might spark off huge problems, unless political forces agree on such reforms and explain them to the general public.

Allow me to mention several examples. At the time of acceding the European Union, Lithuania claimed „equal conditions“ with other EU countries and was resentful of having to accept transitional periods for the free movement of labor. In six years, these periods practically melted away, reducing alongside about 13 percent of the Lithuanian population. Emigration has reached such a scale that at one time Lithuanian companies had to import labor from Belarus, Ukraine and other countries. Lithuania was not properly prepared to face the problem of emigration and today it is a growing political, social and economic issue.
One of the areas where membership in the European Union has provided a very strong impetus is agriculture. Support to agriculture totaled 612 million euros in the first year of membership and 2.2 billion euros for the 2007-2013 period, nearly 22 thousand euros per farmer. Perfect as it may seem, it brings the issue of how this money should be distributed to make sure that it stimulates the restructuring of agriculture and the consolidation of land holdings, on one hand,
and does not drain the countryside of people and helps keep its centuries-long rural traditions, on the other hand. This is a million-dollar question. Our government adopted multiannual programs which were positively assessed by the European Commission, but a wide political debate on this issue did not take place in Lithuania. In this respect, we keep moving adrift, with inertia, without having a clear vision of where we find ourselves in five or six years’ time. I think this is not good.

Another problematic issue: the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. Even before accession, Lithuania tried to resist the pressure to close it down, but ultimately had to give up. We came to the European Union, as they say, “with our fingers crossed”, as the political parties and Lithuanian society were nursing a secret hope that other EU Member States would change their stance and agree to extend Ignalina’s operation. I would even say jokingly that we were reluctant to surrender the status of Lithuania as a nuclear country.

Our “fight” with the European Commission for this status cost us much time which could have been spent, instead, for a comprehensive structural reform of our energy sector. And even today, when the EU has allocated hundreds of millions worth of support for this purpose, we are not sure if we will manage to absorb it.

Therefore, when I speak with representatives of countries aspiring for EU membership, I always try to make it clear: membership needs a proper preparation. It is not only about proper planning and timely transposition of thousands of EU legal acts into the national law – it is also about having a clear national development vision discussed with the general public and backed by major political forces of the country, a vision for energy, transport and agriculture, and for many other areas such as the demographic situation, employment and education, which we normally consider “not relevant” to foreign policy.

Moreover, membership in the club of the most powerful states of the world calls not only for good governance but also for a contribution to the common pool. For instance, next year Lithuania will start making payments to the European Development Fund aimed at providing aid to the poorest African countries. The first payment will be four million euros. The total contribution paid by Lithuania to the EU budget amounts to 300 million Euros a year.

But there is also a much higher price that we pay – our best diplomats, civil servants, translators and interpreters, lawyers leave to work for the European institutions in Brussels and to other countries. As of today, their number has reached 700.

We could hardly find another international organization that takes so much from Lithuania in terms of money and people. But this only shows the importance and uniqueness of the European Union in the modern set-up of international organizations.

Such a country as Ukraine would have to contribute much more, but, at the same time, it would carry a stronger political weight and influence in European and global matters.

Before I finish, there is one last question that will probably come up later in the discussion. “So when can Ukraine expect to join the European Union?” Nobody knows. This is a moving target. When Lithuania joined the European Union, it was already much different from what it used to be 15 years earlier, when membership negotiations started. That new European Union already had a single currency, a more consolidated common foreign policy and reformed institutions.

Nearly a year ago, new changes were brought by the Lisbon Treaty which reformed the decision-making mechanism in the EU, expanding the list of issues decided by the EU Member States by qualified majority, not unanimously. This is a testimony of great mutual trust.

But in the past few days we have been hearing calls to amend the Lisbon Treaty again, to inject more financial discipline into Europe. I confess I was slightly shocked at the news, as I recall how difficult it was and how much time it took to agree on the text of the Lisbon Treaty. This means that even Iceland, which has applied for EU membership quite recently, will join a Union different from the one that existed at the time of the last wave of enlargement.

Therefore, my wish for you is: as you prepare for membership, do your homework, implement reforms and build plans for the future, always keep watching, out of the corner of your eye, the processes in the European democratic space unfold. The European Union seeks to be an active shaper of the democratic world and much will depend on its ability to reach a long-term integrative agreement with the United States
Ukraine has a very important role to play in this policy. It is crucial that Ukraine speak its own words and reinforce them by concrete actions.
I wish success to you all.
Thank you for your attention.
Photo by Roman Malko