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European Population Conference EPC'2003
Opening Speeches
Professor Bronisław GeremekDirk J. van de Kaa"Unification of Europe"
Professor Bronisław Geremek
Key-note speech to the Plenary SessionCentral Europe's return to its proper place in the Western community has a history of its own. This history was punctuated by bursts of resistance that erupted in Berlin, Poznań, Budapest, Warsaw, Prague and Gdansk over that past half-century. The success of Poland's Solidarity, the free trade union that for 500 days in 1980-81 succeeded in creating and maintaining an enclave of freedom within a totalitarian system, foreshadowed the events of 1989, when the velvet revolutions paved the way for a peaceful transition from a "people's democracy" to a "market democracy", which in turn led to the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That year also marked the beginning of the Central European post-communist countries' negotiations with the European Community, which resulted first in their signing of "European treaties", which in turn ushered in a totally different model of an associate state's functioning in the system of European integration, and then in accession negotiations. Of the 13 countries, which became candidates to join the EU at the European summits in Luxembourg in 1997 and Helsinki in 1999, 10 are slated to become European Union members in 2004.
In 1989, when the European Commission, headed by Jacques Delors, undertook the courageous decision to pursue a new model of European integration, it never expected the swift accession of post-communist countries, and certainly not in wholesale form of a group of 10 states joining simultaneously. The first aid programme intended specifically for Eastern Europe was at first addressed only to Poland and Hungary, and subsequently expanded. (At a later point in the accession strategy, negotiations were to be conducted with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. It was, however, deemed significant from a political point of view for this first group to include also at least one former Soviet republic, and so it was augmented by Estonia. These were the countries with which negotiations started in 1997 - as Poland's minister for foreign affairs and I inaugurated this process in Brussels on my country's behalf - and in 2000, the second group of candidates was also invited to the negotiating table. Divergences between the interests of individual Member-States resulted in the adoption of the so-called big-bang approach to expanding the European Union to the East: ten countries shall become members of EU in 2004, two more are supposed to join the EU two years later.
Due to the slowness of the decision-making and negotiation processes in the EU, the Central European countries' desire to reinstate their traditional ties to the West was first fulfilled by NATO - in 1999 Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the Atlantic alliance, followed in 2002 by Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the three Baltic republics. Everything seems to indicate that the European Union will not achieve an eastward expansion on a par with NATO's before the end of the first decade of the 21st century.
The decision made in Copenhagen was certainly brave, and consistent with the post-communist countries' expectations of a quick accession to the Union. It should, however, be said honestly and openly that this decision was not notable for its generosity. During previous accessions the European Union adopted the principle of reducing the new Member-States' contributions to the common budget during the first years of their membership, with payments during the first year being as low as 10 percent of the normal level. This time, even though the new members will be much poorer than the countries accepted during previous expansion rounds, no special terms have been offered. An important background factor influencing the present accession round is the fact that the European economy -especially the economy of Germany, the main contributor to the common EU budget - is undergoing a recession. In such a situation, generosity is not something that can be risked lightly - and so the risk was not taken. What was done were skilful accounting moves that to a certain extent were able to ease the burden of payments, and moreover created a positive socio-psychological effect.
We should therefore ponder the question whether both sides of the accession process are well prepared for the expansion.
At present the candidate countries have, after many years of negotiations, finally adapted their national legislation to the EU's legal system - known as the acquis communautaire - and have revised their budgetary policies accordingly. They have also adjusted to the Union's requirements in many spheres of everyday life. The set of the Copenhagen Criteria constitutes a threshold for accession to the Union, and it covers not only respect for human rights, the principles of democracy and the rule of law, but also the ability to become competitive participants in a unified European market. In the European Union implementing these regulations has also led, for instance, to more stringent observance of hygiene standards in dairy plants and fulfilling the border control and protection standards as required by the terms of the Schengen Treaty.
The candidate countries' governments and parliaments made an enormous effort to adapt to Union requirements. In 2000 - 2001 the number of laws aimed at this adaptation handled by the Sejm - or lower house of Polish parliament - was equal to the entire legislative output of the parliament. A similar task has been performed by parliaments in other candidate states. This is a unique effort, undertaken in response to the Union's demand that the candidate countries adopt the acquis communautaire to a higher extent than has a number of long-term member states, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In addition to this technical aspect of adaptations, candidate countries have achieved a fundamental system transformation that entailed overcoming the entire economic and political legacy of a half-century of communist rule. In this process the help of the West was of major importance, but it never became the long-awaited and dreamed-of "new Marshall Plan". It is enough to recall that the five new states of the former German Democratic Republic received a stream of financial aid that even the most conservative estimates put at the enormous level of more than a trillion dollars. In the former East Germany the number of inhabitants concerned was only 17 million - four times less than the total population of the post-communist states of Central Europe. The transformation process was thus achieved primarily through a collective effort of the people of these countries, and not thanks to the outside help.
Far is it for me to overlook the role that external assistance played in transforming this "second Europe". Various forms of assistance provided by the European Union as a whole and some individual Member States made a large impact here. Even the real economic co-operation in line with the "rather trade than aid" rule was more significant; direct foreign investment (FDI) played a huge role in the economic changes that took place in Hungary or Poland - in the latter case they reached a level of 60 billion euro and came mostly from Europe. The level of FDI in all ten Eastern European candidates is estimated at over 120 billion euro. This cooperation was obviously of mutual benefit. It allowed Central European countries to adjust to the competitive demands of the world market, to modernise their technology infrastructure, and adapt to international economic standards. Western countries gained new markets for their products as well as opportunities to increase profitably their production potential. However, we shouldn't forget that these economic relations were highly asymmetrical, both in the balance of payments, and in the foreign trade balance. The European treaty that made Poland an associate member in 1991, allowed for special customs regulations in trade between Poland and EU states, meant to assure an economic and trade imbalance in favour of Poland. The result, however, was opposite of that intended, since in its trade with the EU, Poland, for example, records an annual trade deficit on the order of 10 billion euro.
In its actions to adapt the country to the new political and economic situation, Poland has also made use of various forms of institutional assistance besides those provided through the European Commission.
The Weimar meeting of the German, French and Polish ministers of foreign affairs in 1991 gave rise to a permanent "enhanced co-operation" between these three countries. Each of them had its own reasons for establishing and continuing this co-operation, intended to find answers to the challenges of 1989. It was obvious to all sides that the end of the division of Europe required new political solutions, for which the fate of Poland was of significant importance. For Poland - we should be clear about this - one of the most vital issues was finding some sort of counter-balance to Germany in the process of defining Poland's place within Europe; only France could fulfil this role.
In 1989 Poland gained France's support for its position on the "2+4" conference, which was devoted to the unification of Germany, and Polish public opinion noted with some apprehension that chancellor Helmut Kohl's "Ten Points" failed to include any mention of Germany's acceptance of the permanence of the border on the Oder and Neisse (Odra and Nysa) Rivers. The anxieties of those days have abated, Germany has become an important factor in supporting Poland's desire for membership in the Union, but that co-operation within the "Weimar Triangle" supported Poland's transformation process and may retain its importance even in an enlarged European Union. Naturally, while acknowledging that the countries aspiring to membership have succeeded in preparing themselves, one must not overlook the existence of significant delays in the implementation of European law. European Commission reports in recent years have rightly pointed out the slowness and ineffectiveness of state administration, inefficiency of the courts, weakness of the institutions responsible for carrying out Community policies and the alarming extent of corruption in public life. The effort to improve these shortcomings has already been undertaken and its results will determine the quality of the accession and the actual outcome of the Union's enlargement. The adaptation to the challenges of the eastward expansion has turned out to be much less extensive in the Union itself. In the area of accession negotiations, high praise is certainly due to the work of the European Commission and its staff, thanks to which the unprecedented process of negotiating simultaneously with ten countries could be successfully finalised in Copenhagen and it was possible to prepare the accession treaties for signing. However, it turned out that just as the West was in general surprised by the Central-Eastern European nations' peacefully throwing off Soviet domination in 1989 and the fall of the Berlin wall - even though it was precisely on the expected fall of communism, unification of Germany and of Europe that political programs and ideologies of the West focused - so similarly today the European Union finds itself surprised by the prospect of a truly unified Europe in the foreseeable future. Hurried visits made in 1989-1990 by some Western politicians to Berlin as the capital of the German Democratic Republic, or to Kiev or Minsk as the capitals of the Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus, were aimed more at delaying the process of breaking up the structures of divided Europe, than at stimulating it and supporting its credibility. The perspective of EU accession by those 10 Central European post-communist states was, however, becoming a reality, and now, 14 years after the magnificent "autumn of the peoples" of 1989, it appears that Europe is not able to bear the burden of its own unification. It isn't prepared institutionally, nor financially, nor socially.
It is not prepared institutionally: because it is obvious that the methods used for managing a community of 15 states cannot be effective for one that numbers 25, and will soon accept more. Already now it is becoming increasingly obvious that an extensive reform of community institutions is required in order to enable them to successfully conduct a common foreign and security policy, as well as a common monetary policy. Maintaining the current practice of unanimous decision-making in an expanded Union would certainly paralyse its decision process. Only now, following the Laeken Declaration, and the constitution for Europe prepared by the Convention headed by Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and in a few months - in April or June 2003 - the Intergovernmental Conference should take decisions on the deep institutional reform.
It is not prepared from a financial or budgetary point of view: due to the lack of Common Agricultural Policy reform and freezing - at France's and Germany's request - of actions in this area until 2007, the current EU budget, which is based on the principle of Member-States' contributions equivalent to 1,27 percent of their GDP, is short of funds that would guarantee new EU members the foreseen financial transfers. This will obviously affect the behaviour of the new member states after their accession.
It is not prepared socially: it turns out that the public in EU member states has a limited understanding of the historic nature of the current expansion, and is uneasy about its effect on their own living standards, as well as on the general level of prosperity and stability inside the Union. Stereotypical fears of destabilisation of the labour market or uncontrolled migrations from the poorer to richer Union countries currently determine social feelings toward expansion in individual countries and, generally speaking, the attitude of EU public opinion toward enlargement.
In view of this discrepancy between the level of preparedness for expansion in candidate countries, and the readiness of the Union itself, it is advisable to examine the work being done to reform the community. At the present moment, this scale of short- and medium-term evolution of the European Union seems to be more important than the big question about the finalité of the process of European integration.
It is now necessary to realistically yet imaginatively define the principal dilemmas and challenges that the enlargement process poses for the European Union.
The first and fundamental problem is the gap in living standards between current EU states and new members. Never during any previous accession rounds have there existed such drastic differences between new and old member states. Measuring that difference in terms of GDP per inhabitant and adjusting it for purchasing power parity (a measure of the exchange rate that corrects misalignments in foreign exchange markets) gives us - according to the European Commission's data for 2001 - the following picture: Slovenia has a GDP equal to 69 percent of the average GDP in the current European Union, the Czech Republic- 57 percent, Hungary- 51 percent, Slovakia- 48 percent, Estonia - 42 percent, Poland - 40 percent, Lithuania- 38 percent, Latvia- 33 percent. Leaving aside Cyprus and Malta, the levels for the next candidates mentioned in Copenhagen are as follows: Bulgaria - 28 percent and Romania - 25 percent. The rich countries' club that the European Union has become will therefore soon be joined by poor members. This is a challenge for the entire community, to its sense of solidarity and its policy of equalising disproportions. However, the dynamic of change depends first and foremost on the post-communists states now joining the Union. They must become competitive in the spirit of the Copenhagen criteria, but they need to create their own strategy of accelerating development, which over the next decade would be able to guarantee them a rate of economic development at least twice that of the European Union's average.
In this context, it is important to ask the question about the place of the post-communist countries within the Lisbon Programme, which aims to make Europe "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010". On their way toward this goal, the current candidate countries can transform their weakness of delays in technological development into a strength, seeking out for themselves the most promising niches of economic development. This, however, will require the inclusion of the sphere of Research and Development in aid policies and support for investments in science and education that would bring educational standards and the proportion of citizens with a university education in candidate countries up to European levels. At present the disparities are large: the proportion of citizens with a university education in those countries is half the EU level, while their expenditures for scientific research are proportionally three times lower than in the EU.
The fight against poverty is certainly the most urgent problem with which the world is struggling today. After enlargement, it may become an internal EU problem as well. The removal of the drastic disproportions in living standards and elimination of developmental delays on the Old Continent will give Europe the chance to point the way toward the correct solution of this global problem. However, it is necessary to perceive fully the dramatic character of this challenge and the threats inherent in it. The correct reaction must, in addition to the pragmatic problems of economic and social policy, also include the concept of European solidarity, which is difficult to envision without a fully developed sense of common values and a common identity.
The second problem is the Union's inner structure, the intensity of community ties, the methods of control and internal balance in the system structures of this very special political entity. It is often said that post-communist countries bring to the Union their specific traumatic experience, resulting from their loss of national sovereignty, and that they may therefore fall prey to various "sovereignty" fears and temptations. These fears and national complexes should no doubt be taken into account in the process of adaptation to Union membership. I believe, however, that an experience that has been at least as - if not more - important in these countries' history as the actual loss of nationhood, was their domination by a foreign power and loss of democratic and civil freedoms. For this reason, during the enlargement process the current "deficit of democracy" in the EU, the lack of a place for the individual citizen within the EU institutional structure, the insufficient legitimisation of the Union's system of power and governance may cause a feeling of distrust toward the Union's institutions. Related to this are the already appearing tensions between large and small member states. The present expansion will introduce into the EU a group of ten rather small states. Large states believe their influence over the functioning of the Union is decreasing, but it is the small states that feel increasingly marginalised in relation to various "locomotives", "avant-gardes" or specific agreements. Countries that are now joining the Union may be oversensitive toward instances of particular countries playing a dominant role in the Union's decision-making process. In view of this special sensitivity to the position of the citizen, to democracy, to equal rights of citizens and nations, present debates on the future of the EU are at their very beginning.
The third problem which the expansion process places squarely on the Union's agenda is the full range of the Union's external relations with those countries of the continent that do not belong to the EU, and, at least in the foreseeable future, will not become its members. It especially concerns two complex dimensions of EU policy: the Balkan dimension and the Eastern (i.e. East European) dimension. After the expansion these regions are no longer some far-off lands, but countries bordering the new accession states - and thus the European Union's future neighbours. This is not the age-old and very theoretical question about the "borders of Europe" but a very specific and practical question about the policies that the Union should exercise in these two dimensions. Now, thanks to the experience gained through the functioning of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) the old concept of creating a "European Confederation", put forward by François Mitterand in 1990, can form the basis of a new model. Since the European Union is not identical with Europe, it needs to have its own "European policy" within its overall policy. The present European debate on the future of the EU does not provide clear answers to these fundamental challenges posed by the current expansion. Without attempting at present to point to any specific programme of internal EU reform - which is after all being developed by the Convention - I would only like to present several proposals, taking into account the challenges I have mentioned.
The new Member States can expect to receive significant economic development support from the European Union - primarily in the form of aid funds - on a greater scale than during the pre-accession period. It will be important to ensure that these funds serve the modernisation of these countries' economies and support increased economic development. Higher chances for employment, the creation of new jobs, the fall in the unemployment rate will be the main social approval factors after the accession, while the lack of improvement in these areas would cause disappointment. What is thus required is an appropriate translation of the "Lisbon process" to suit the reality of an expanded Union. In this situation one can have doubts whether the Convention's assertions that only monetary policy - and in no case economic policy - fall within the scope of Community authority bode well. The very existence of a common currency promotes instituting a common economic policy, and EU expansion and the new members' ambitions to introduce the euro by 2006 (the three Baltic states have already announced such a plan), will create a tremendous pressure to include economic policy within Community prerogatives. This will require the Union to reorient its economic activities, as well as strengthening the role of the European Commission.
Both in order to ensure transparency of the functioning and its effectiveness, it is necessary to define precisely "who does what" in the European Union. The very merging of the numerous European treaties into one whole, which has already been undertaken by several European institutions, should lead to a European constitution. By now even the British, who for so long have opposed the idea, believe such a constitution to be necessary. A constitution would allow for excluding a large part of the issues covered by the treaties from unanimous voting, and the introduction of the majority-vote principle, with an accepted mechanism for weighting the votes, as the general practice in all matters that are not of constitutional significance, in which the principle of unanimous decision would be retained.
In the past half century European integration progressed thanks to the "community method" which, for example during the presidency of Jacques Delors, was able to combine a pursuit of European interests with respect for national ones. In view of the new members' expectations it will also be necessary to strengthen the role of the European Commission. The objective should be to remove the contradictions between the community method and the intergovernmental method, or even to combine the two.
A proposal - supported by France and Germany - of establishing the institution of the President of the European Union, to be appointed by the European Parliament, could introduce into the Union the French system of "cohabitation", a system which at present seems to be trying the patience of the French themselves. I believe that a President of the European Commission should be elected by the European Parliament but nominated by the heads of government, i.e. the European Council. Giving the European Council the initiative in this matter would decrease the risk of the head of the European Commission being appointed based on party affiliation, as would be the case if the president were chosen by the parliament. I see no arguments against a President of the European Commission elected in this manner chairing European Council sessions. It would fulfil democratic standards, while at the same time satisfying the Union's requirement for operating effectiveness: it would safeguard the community from entropy.
The common foreign and security policy should be conducted by a European minister of foreign affairs, who should be a member of both the European Council - as is presently the case - and of the European Commission. An appointment procedure analogous to that proposed for the president of the Commission could be applied to choose the two vice-presidents - one responsible for a common foreign policy, the other for a common monetary and economic policy.
Finally, last but not least, there is the issue of the role of the European Parliament. The increase of its importance is certainly in the interest of the citizens of EU and would go a long way toward overcoming the infamous "deficit of democracy" in the community's functioning. We must, however, have a realistic approach to the current situation: so far Europeans still tend to think of themselves as citizens of specific nation-states; their civic identification is connected with the national parliament that decides on taxes, public revenues and expenditures and most of the legislation. The limelight is squarely on the politics conducted by the parliaments and political parties of the nation-states, and not on the European Parliament. The European constitution will set a new framework for the Union's operations. It will refer to the "state of the Union" as it is at present, but at the same time allow for its development beyond today and tomorrow. I believe that the European Union will become a powerful partner of the global game in economy and in politics, that it will develop a sense of community and belonging among its citizens, that it is capable of combining Europe's historical experience with thinking about the future. Like every community, the European Union needs also great founding myths, it needs far-reaching vision, it even needs dreams. However, politics also requires realism: visions and dreams have to be translated into the language of political plans. It is my firm belief that the present expansion of the Union to the East can be considered as a process of unification of Europe: united Europe can become an important partner in the global political and economic interdependence.
Comments on key-note address of Professor B. Geremek
Dirk J. van de Kaa
Mr. President, Distinguished Guests, Colleagues, dear Professor Geremek,
The organizers of this conference have invited me to offer you, Professor Geremek, a vote of thanks on behalf of the audience, and also on their behalf, and to comment on your key-note address. I undertake these two different tasks with equal pleasure.
I should, first, like to thank you for a very inspiring and well-documented speech and for letting us profit from your insights as a professional historian and from your personal experiences as Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was really fitting that you selected the unification of Europe as the theme for the opening of this General Conference. After all the European Association for Population Studies has as its logo the mythical princess Europa riding the back of Zeus, who had disguised himself as a majestic bull. A great deal has been written about this princess. It would seem that in the end even Zeus found it difficult to deal with her. Apparently she was a very fickle friend; never able to make up her mind or to decide on what she really wanted. Some argue she clearly passed those character traits on to the whole continent! I recently encountered an irreverent poem by a German author who put that as follows:
' da wurde es selbst Zeus ganz klar, Wie uneinig Europa war! Und es ist gar nicht übertrieben. Zu sagen, es sei so geblieben.' (Heinz Erhardt)
A further reason why the theme was so well chosen is that at the beginning of the 21st century both Europe's unification and its demographic problems are of crucial importance for the future of the continent. In your lecture you displayed great mastery of the complicated social and economic issues that have to be dealt with in accession negotiations. And while you stressed that much has been achieved in a remarkably short time you sent us the poignant reminder that much more remains to be done. I should like to thank you for this address and I would like to say that you succeeded in making your speech relevant to all of us, whether we are in or out of the EU, will soon join or later, will observe developments in this region as close neighbours or from the vantage point of another continent.
Thank you very much.
As you will readily understand I shall use a demographic perspective as the starting point for my comments. As a classical academic I shall present three issues to argue that the unification process is even more complicated and difficult than you have sketched, and three others that suggest Europe's demographic situation is, in fact, likely to further integration and unification.
What this conference will in all likelihood drive home again is that Europe's current demographic constellation has far-reaching geo-political, social, economic, and cultural ramifications. The population is ageing rapidly, the number of births per family remains quite low, negative rates of natural population growth are common, and large numbers of migrants are seeking their fortune in the region. Some highly respected colleagues have already calculated that fifty years from now a few countries will be back to the population size they had in the 1950s. Others argue forcefully that responsible governments ought to take action now to avoid serious consequences. All this implies:
- That the problems of solidarity, poverty, education, and integration will be even more intractable and difficult to resolve than you have sketched. It is not solely the poor and under-privileged of new EU countries that will clamour for attention, there will be many newcomers intent on improving their lot and skills. When viewed in conjunction with increased internal labour migration and the presence of such well-established minorities as the Amsterdam Moroccans, the Yorkshire Bengalis, and the Turks who can rightfully claim 'Ich bin ein Berliner', one is bound to conclude that in the years to come Europe's melting pot will boil fiercer than ever before.
- The EU, as well as its individual countries, will in the next decades face increased international competition and the effects of further globalisation. You highlighted that clearly. What should be stressed here is that this will seriously test the viability of advanced welfare states precisely at a time when their age structures would, ceteris paribus, lead to increased expenditures for health care, pensions, and the like. But, as the well-known sociologist Fritz Scharpf has argued, welfare state revenue is constrained by international tax competition, by the need to reduce non-wage labour costs, and by the need to avoid substantial public sector deficits. Planned welfare state retrenchments have already made labour leaders promise us 'more hot summers' and that without referring to air pollution or climate change.
- In your lecture you stressed the overriding need of the Central European countries to increase the enrolment and output of their institutions for higher education. Rightly so. But from all we, as empirical demographers know, it is highly likely that this will depress fertility, at least temporarily due to the postponement of births. So far, education and reproduction do not fit well together in the European Union and I don't think that is about to change. It is further evident that the EU countries have also not been particularly successful in enabling men and women to be active in the labour force and to become a parent. In fact, recent developments, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, tend to put increased strain on family life. Consequently, the Rostock demographers do well to try and find a term that goes even lower than their famous 'lowest-low' concept. The general point to be made here is, of course, that increased educational enrolment, globalisation, mass-individualisation, and the rising economic uncertainty amongst the young associated with these processes, come at a time when several demographers warn that countries would do well to attempt to raise the number of births. Last week I heard one colleague argue repeatedly for a redistribution of family allowances. As there is a need for more third children, so his argument, it made no sense to support families with only one or two. All moneys should instead go to families with three or more! But, what if the young do not even decide for one?
Following my earlier promise, I should now like to present three arguments why the demographic situation could facilitate unification and integration in Europe.
- From a demographic perspective our 'old continent' Europe will in a global context soon be marginalized, and the EU as part of it even more so. On a world scale its population size will be dwarfed by an increasingly large number of individual countries in Asia or Africa. If the EU wants to be heard, it will have to speak with one, rather than 25 or 27 voices. Moreover, when compared to the United States its population growth is sluggish and its age structure unfavourable to rapid economic expansion. This may also provide an incentive to unite; it is at the very least, a partial alternative to the politically unattractive proposition of strongly stimulating population growth in each individual European country.
- Several of the issues you have referred to in your address are very sensitive politically. There is precious little political capital to be gained by addressing them at the national level. I have already heard many politicians say that the problems of international migration, of political asylum, family reunion and so on, can only be resolved at the level of the EU. So, making certain issues the responsibility of the 'bureaucrats in Brussels' may have its attractions.
- As a final point we should keep in mind that is seems to be in the nature of political processes that developments occur by leaps and bounds. A senior Dutch politician once looked at me severely when I complained about the slowness of the political decision making process. 'Young man' he said - it is decades ago - 'the art of politics is not to move unless that has become absolutely unavoidable'. Undoubtedly, change will occur only once pressures have built up. I believe, Professor Geremek, that your country did in fact apply that principle quite successfully at the Copenhagen Summit. I'm convinced that Europe's new demographic regime will generate the sort of pressures in society that will contribute to the unification process.
Let me conclude in a more light-hearted vein. For many in this audience becoming a university professor is the apex in a career. It is a prestigious post to be cherished and to devote one's life to. You, Professor Geremek, left it to become Minister of Foreign Affairs. The best aspect of such a post, people always tell me, is that you can soon say you have once held it! Nevertheless, a remarkably large number of your university colleagues in Central Europe followed your example and became minister or ambassador. I also noted that historians were well represented amongst them. At first that puzzled me, but a few months ago I understood that it would give such persons a natural advantage in trans-Atlantic discussions about the 'new' and 'old' Europe! Moreover, your lecture has shown us that over the last century history as a discipline has probably changed as much as demography. A few years ago I heard the famous historian Fritz Stern, in a lecture on the Five Germanys he had known, explain that once historians thought their task was to let history speak. Now they trace the facts of the past and assemble these. But they are aware such facts are dumb and only acquire meaning trough imagination and original analysis, and by placing them in a suitable frame work. This parallels developments in demography. Once some population scientists felt they could speak for all women. The Swedish professor Pontus Fallbeck, for example, argued at a conference of the International Statistical Institute almost exactly 100 years ago, that while women loved children, they didn't like to produce them. Even though he lectured in French, the most commonly understood conference language of the time, he was not contradicted; this probably simply because there were no women in the audience! Now we are aware of the fact that our opinions and predictions are contingent upon more factors than we can fathom and that we will have to adjust them over time. Even so, I must confess that many of us tend to speak with great authority on the fertility of women who have not even been born as yet! At this stage of play I'm ready to admit, Professor Geremek, that when I heard that you held a chair in European Civilization, I was not sure we would see you here at all. For in the European Review, the Journal of the Academia Europaea, an organisation of which you are a distinguished member, I had just been reading a paper by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in which he flatly denies there is any such thing as a European Civilization. There is, he feels, no obvious, objective feature that makes a European European. Europe is not 'Christian' or even 'Judaeo-Christian', has no common language -quite the contrary as matter of fact-, has no distinctively European styles of science, technology or thought, and no distinctive European political and economic cultures. His paper made me think; but didn't convince me. What I liked most about his essay is that he concludes that ' Europe can be an elastic concept, stretched to include peoples wherever they live and wherever they come from, who want to belong, and are willing to make the commitment required'. He continues as follows; ' pluralism is all we have in common - the precious ingredient of a potential European civilization and the essential starting-point for turning it into a reality.' And indeed, it is difficult to see how Europe can be united further if its diversity is not respected.
In your lecture you similarly stressed, Professor Geremek, that much remains and needs to be done. I agree. But I must say that, when 10 days or so ago, I had a chance to visit an exhibition in Berlin and heard the voices of Aristide Briand and Winston Churchill explain their thoughts for a Europe of the future I was really thrilled by the achievements of the last decades. In 1795, the year of the French Revolution, Immanuel Kant outlined his ideas for a Europe in 'permanent peace' (Zum ewigen Frieden). It seems it is only now that we are getting it in sight. We may not be there yet, but as far as I can see we are closer to it than ever before in your or my life time.
Thank you all very much for your attention.
Dirk J. van de Kaa, Honorary President of the EAPS, and Honorary Fellow of NIDI, The Hague
Warsaw, 25 August 2003
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