It is indeed an
honor for me to address you here,
at the Headquarters of the Andean
Community, to share a few thoughts
with you about what integration
means to us and the challenges we
must confront as the new
millennium opens.
It is extremely
significant that we are making our
presentation here in Lima, where
during the nineteen seventies,
Hungarian economists who were
teaching at San Marcos University
-and who were later to become key
players in fashioning the
democratic changes that took place
in Hungary- made their first
acquaintance with the aspirations
for regional integration. These
were experiences that helped them
to define the strategy they
applied to the Hungarian economy.
Life itself is
a continuing challenge, and the
life of the Hungarian nation is no
exception. It was this challenge
that spurred our nomadic Asian
forefathers to undertake a journey
of thousands of kilometers over
thousands of years. It was the
lodestar that guided the actions
of our great King Steven, whose
successful efforts at
modernization can be compared with
those of twentieth century Japan.
And so it has been, with one new
challenge after another every day
of Hungary's history.
At the
threshold of this new age, as the
third millennium opens, each State
must face a three-fold challenge:
to cope with the unavoidable
effects of globalization; to
achieve a regional cooperation
that while contributing to that
globalization, also offers some
protection against its negative
effects; and lastly to address the
specific tasks called for by each
nation's socioeconomic and
cultural development. Only through
a combined attack on the three may
these challenges be successfully
met.
Hungary, with
its revolution of 1956 and the
dismantling of the iron curtain in
1989, made an important
contribution to the demise of the
bipolar world. Since then the
country has devoted ten years to
successfully building its
democracy and a market economy,
together with all of Eastern and
Central Europe. We now need strong
international relations to
guarantee our security and
underpin our economic
modernization. Steps taken in that
direction include our entry into
NATO, which has already been
accomplished, and our forthcoming
acceptance into the European Union.
The Central European Free Trade
Association, CEFTA, whose members
share these same aims, is also
highly important to us.
For the ship of
Hungary, the European Union is our
anchor, allowing us to dock at the
port of economic modernization.
Fully 76% of our exports go to the
Union, which supplies over two-thirds
of the goods we import. The
nineteen eighties witnessed an
unprecedented structural change,
as the world's most important
multinational enterprises
established their most modern
European bases on Magyar soil.
These corporations now produce 75%
of our worldwide exports, some 63%
of which consist of machinery,
electronic products, computers,
pharmaceutical products and
transportation media. This clearly
demonstrates that integration is
forged not only by governments,
but also by enterprises.
The experiences
of three decades of Andean
Community life, together with the
efforts of Hungarian integration
policy, have a series of lessons
to offer that are of benefit to
both of us:
Two elements
that are essential for the
progress of integration are a
definite government strategy and a
well-developed private economy.
Without the defined structures
created by the former, potential
cooperation cannot be used to the
fullest and without a developed
private economy even the best
ideas put forward by the Executive
will be lacking in a competitive
content.
Deadlines must
be set for unifying government
action, if the aims of integration
are to the achieved. Hungary wants
to be ready to enter the Union in
the year 2002 and after a silence
of several years' standing similar
time references are beginning to
be heard from Brussels. Here, you
members of the Andean Community
want to establish free trade with
Mercosur by 2000 and to enter into
a customs union by the year 2005.
Setting a date is important
because rapid changes bring more
unknown elements into the picture
every day. Its as if, I would
venture to say, players on an all-weather
Andean field were to be speeding
toward a constantly moving goal
post.
In order to
take advantage of the economic
opportunities, infrastructural
networks must be rapidly created
in the areas of telecommunication,
road systems, and educational
centers, etc., to link together
not only the economic actors, but
also the societies in which they
operate.
Both you and we
pay special attention to
developing cooperation in border
areas. In Hungary's case, several
national and European Union
programs underpin this effort.
Recently published Andean
Community documents point up the
importance of this aspect, which
goes far beyond immediate economic
relations. The conference now
being held in Iquitos on these
issues is highly promising in this
context.
Our governments
have recognized that integration
is not an economic process alone,
but basically a socioeconomic and
cultural endeavor. In the end,
what we seek is not merely to
improve the material welfare of
the people, but also to enhance
their safety and to raise their
level of culture and to bring
society together in a closer union.
The key role given to the social
and environmental aspects of
integration is a highly valuable
element of the integration
philosophy of the Andean Community.
Hungary's entry into the European
Union is going to open up for us a
series of identical tasks.
Although
countries like Hungary and Peru
obviously depend to a large extent
on processes that are playing out
across the world or within our
more reduced regions, we cannot
stand passively on the sidelines
watching the processes of
globalization or integration
unfold; our role cannot be reduced
to the unilateral and defensive
adjustment to changing conditions.
From the very beginning, what we
need are active policies that are
designed to respond to challenges
before they even emerge and that
are capable of taking advantage of
any opportunities that may arise.
I would like to
refer at this point to the
development of relations between
our two regions. The Eastward
opening of the European Union and
Hungary's entry into it may
improve the relations of the
Andean Community and of Peru with
Europe as a whole.
Medium-term
economic forecasts place the new
center of European growth in
Central Europe, which will give
new vigor to the entire region.
This will open up highly favorable
opportunities and offer direct
benefits to all of the trading
partners, as well as the
enterprises that contribute
capital, technology or services
and that agree to compete.
The volume and
structure of our goods make us
complementary partners, rather
than competitors. There are no
Hungarian products in the Union
markets that compete with Andean
Community exports. Hungary's
economy, whose performance will be
enhanced by the country's entry
into the Union, will experience an
increased demand for products the
Andean countries export to Europe
in large amounts.
I would like to
conclude this brief outline of the
new challenges and opportunities
with the following words: the
question above all others --our
greatest challenge-- is whether or
not we will be able to conquer
ourselves, to overcome human
nature, the thousands of years old
responses to the interests of the
all-powerful State, the egoism of
the Nation-State.
Placing one's
own interest above the interests
of others is the natural state of
affairs in the world. It was not
altruism, but foresight and -why
not say it-farsighted egoism that
led the founding fathers of the
European Community to set aside
German-French-British rivalries.
This is the same egoism that we
hope to see the more fortunate
nations display at the time of our
entry, and not merely the
calculations of short-lived costs
and benefits.
We, too,
without considering fleeting
advantages or disadvantages, but
based on long-term common
interests, must with this same
naturalness, lend a hand in the
recovery of countries troubled by
situations that are even more
serious than ours, whether those
countries be located in our own
regions or elsewhere in the world.
If we take this
farsighted egoism -in the good
sense of the word- as our guiding
course, if this is the answer we
jointly offer to the challenges
posed by the third millennium, we
will most assuredly leave a safer
and more prosperous world to those
who follow us.
The world is
not 'wide and alien*,' my friends.
Thank-you for your attention.
