Fellow Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am grateful for this opportunity to dwell on the significance of the year 1989 and to distill those ideas that shaped so many of the events of that year.

We have been asked to address a specific issue: the influence of the ideas of that time on foreign policy. I want to stay with that subject: it is of central importance to the practice of foreign policy in south-eastern Europe because I believe that the ideas of 1989 were about democracy and the democratisation of the practice of foreign policy. I will return to this theme.

The ideas that drove politics to such momentous change were about society. They were about the role of the citizen and society. They were about the relationship between the citizen and the state. They were about the freedom of the citizen to associate and act, in a manner that is civil, to pursue their interests and the common good. They were ideas that confronted centralization with the benefits of decentralization; market as opposed to state; central control or public participation.

And, let us not be too arid or technical about this, they were about ideas that inspired hope that gave courage to the few to lead the many towards a new freedom. In short, the events, the personalities, the ideas of 1989 were - and remain - emblematic of a world in flux.

What occurred in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union was a dramatic variation of a global theme.

States were on the retreat, crippled by debts and increasingly pressured by those who were excluded from participation in the benefits of economic or political life. Civic initiative, in many parts of the globe, was already and spontaneously filling the vacuum left by states no longer capable of providing security from cradle to the grave. Some turned to religious institutions, others to ethnic affiliation. Some used these affiliations to advance their interests in the most violent of ways. Others sought recourse in small interest groups that spoke to issues of health, gender or environment. In their sum, they constituted a radical change in global action and politics. The citizen was assuming new responsibilities and, moreover, was creating new links, of solidarity across frontiers. The private sector was already mobilizing for the tidal wave of globalization. Technology was breaching boundaries. AIDS reminded us that diseases have no frontiers. Environmental catastrophes awoke us to new global responsibilities. Human disasters were increasingly acknowledged to be man made, causing many to subordinate the sovereignty of states to the needs of suffering individuals. And, it was action by civic groups that invariably jabbed the international community into the need for responsible action.

1989 brought these disparate trends into sharp focus. The unimaginable had suddenly become inevitable. An entire system, which shaped post World War II international politics, collapsed. In hindsight we might say that the edifice was ready to crumble. At the time, I do believe that without the efforts of myriad of small and larger civic initiatives, we would not have had the peaceful internal changes that did occur.

This was a time when totalitarianism imploded and democracy exploded. I draw out of this one fundemental lesson and theme. At that time, the central idea was that all ideas should be entertained. The notion of democracy, as I lived it then, was to entertain the pluralism of ideas and ideologies. One was not embarrassed to espouse neo-liberalism, anarchism, variations of social democracy and any number of other ideas. What one did accept, however, was that one should build institutions and democracies which tolerated, negotiated and sought a new form of consensus around all these ideas.

This leads me to conclude that 1989 was about the creation of functioning democracies - and, not just democracies of the former eastern bloc, but democracies anywhere. How could we develop a new contract, if you wiII, with institutions which would not allow hate, prejudice and exclusivism to usurp what was now meant to be civil. Hence I arrive at the further conclusion that central to a functioning democracy today is the need for a healthy, vibrant civil society. A civil society that is genuinely civil; a civil society that creates the space for the individual to live and express a variety of ideals; a civil society capable of engaging with other institutions such as the state and the emerging private sector.

I will dwell largely on these issues because in our region of Europe, we took the wrong turn after 1989. We saw civil society usurped; we saw institutions hijacked; we saw the potential participants in the building of new democracies trapped by the choice between treason, if they opted for democracy; or nationalist intransigeance.

And yet, I remain persuaded that we can build democracies in our region and I do believe that civil society can become the engine of these democracies and the relations among them. I have only to think about the turn in our relations with Turkey and I am persuaded of the indisputable role of civil society. I will elaborate on this in a moment.

What, then, do I understand of the role of civic initiative in that period and what do we need to do about it now?

I will not pretend to enter into a theoretical debate about civil society. I do know, however, that throughout the 1980s we witnessed a variety of initiatives and actions that throughout the Eastern Bloc that indicated an emerging mobilization of populations. In Poland, the trade unions led the way with Solidarity. The role of the Catholic Church in that country was equally important in strengthening the opposition to government. Throughout Eastern Europe and also in the Soviet Union, individuals rallied around environmental issues. Indeed many of the environmental NGOs were to become the testing grounds for political experience and through their actions inspire many others. I offer these as examples only of the many courageous initiatives that occurred during that period.

I merely wish to underline the variety of organization and inspiration. Churches, environmentalists, mothers, youth, Pensioners. AlI organized and began to express themselves. Each expressed their own ideology. But they acted and they collaborated with each other.

What has been the longer-term impact? With its emergence, civil society assumes vast responsibilities. Civil society is not just to be treated as the fashionable flavor of the moment by those who enjoy social engineering. It is the lifeblood of the citizen: it is what should compensate what some of us in the EU refer to as the democratic deficit in which citizens feel themselves ever more alienated from vast and distant centers of financial, bureaucratic and political power.

Civil society, in turn, assumes a trust which can be easily abused. The free association of citizens is a wonderful thing. But it ceases to be so when it takes the path of virulent exclusion. Moreover, in those parts of the world and of our region of Europe where it is still growing, it needs the protection from the wider circle of the global civic movement. Isolation breeds parochialism.

Civil society remained and held its ground throughout the region, gradually building ties with other such networks throughout the world. This is important because we have to remember that during this period, there was the counterweight of new states justifying themselves. Civil society - those who committed themselves to protecting civil society as one vital institution that mediates between the citizen and the state - has now demonstrated its own staying power. It has stayed to fight for its own legitimacy under law. It has begun to acquire the recognition of political leaderships and bureaucracies that have otherwise been less than well disposed to this civic intrusion.

But civil society has offered much more. It emerged from the need for greater public participation and transparency in societies, economies and political structures. That is an enduring phenomenon. Civil society has held government accountable and it is beginning to use the same tools to hold the private sector socially and environmentally accountable. I believe that it is now unimaginable, as a politician in our region, to contemplate new policies without prior consultation with the public. And, in order to do this, we do best to work with and through civil society. Not to impose, but learn and arrive at a broader social consensus.

I would emphasise that we also learn that civil society cannot survive in isolation. It must coexist with the state: sometimes in contention, sometimes collaborating, but co-existing always.

We have learnt of civil society that it is only truly "civil" when it is inclusive and not exclusive. Throughout much of the former Eastern Bloc we have been able to witness the benefits of when civil society opens its doors to all. We have also seen the tragic consequences of when civil society is unable to muster the capacity to do so and is submerged in a sea of prejudice and paranoia. In most of the Former Yugoslavia, the future of democracy end its civic institutions, was hijacked by the politics of nationalist hatred.

The region and its civic institutions may have lost a decade in building new functioning democracies. I however have not lost hope.

In 1990, as younger politicians, Jan Kavan, Pascal Milo from Albania and I were meeting with many others discussing all these issues. Civil society, then, brought us together, after a period when contacts among citizens and politicians of our countries had been rare. Today, the three of us are foreign ministers. We deal with affairs of state. But we also share the vision and belief that affairs of state must involve the citizen and the citizen is represented through the ballot box and his or her interests are "mediated", if you, by the institutions of civil society. This allows us to speak the same language, even if we disagree.

I cannot but be persuaded that without an active civil society, contributing to the development of open, transparent, inclusive societies, we will not have functioning democracies and we will not have foreign policies democratized.

It will not be easy. The challenges we face in creating functioning democracies in our region are considerable. States are weak. Parallel institutions abound (black markets, gray markets, paramilitaries, and mafias). Institutions are weak: judiciaries, media, the private sector and even civil society organizations still need a great deal of strengthening. Local governments still battle for control against the central government, or, conversely, the central government is so weak that local government is effectively independent. Economic warlords, if you will, play a new role. They are neither official nor are they illegal. These are symptoms of a region that has far to go to attain the levels of stability that would be required for, say, entry into Europe.

If these issues are not addressed we run the risk of discussing stability while the seeds of instability are being sewn.

At the top of the agenda is the immediate, rapid development of institutions, and notably, the civic sector as a fundamental element of regional stability. I do not mean simply the creation of many nongovernmental organizations. I mean the encouragement of networks of civic initiative that create, in turn, institutional networks which address social needs, advocate policy, develop independent research in order to advocate independent thinking, which create networks to deal with women's concerns; environmental crises. I urge this because it is still in its infancy in our region, relative to countries further north.

I want to be quite specific about my vision of civil society. These are organizations, loose or tightly knit; large or small. They represent all sectors of life and all levels of society. But they must have some common characteristics. As organizations they must assume the institutional characteristics of being accountable and transparent about the interests they serve. They must be willing to cooperate with other institutions in the locality from other sector. Thus, one looks to the day when civil society, the private sector and local government actively engage in the development of local policies: where they hold each other accountable. These institutions of civil society must be able to communicate and associate beyond their frontiers.

In short, I want to see civil society in our region developed within each country and associating freely and substantially across frontiers. These relationships are not the prerogative of states or corporations. They are the rights of citizens.

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[These are the networks that give the citizen the opportunity to participate and feel they have a stake in their own society and in a more general security. These are the institutional networks that generate the informed public debate so necessary and still insufficient in our region.

These are the institutions, which provide the citizen the sense of security, and allow the citizen to rise, through new avenues of participation in community and public life, above temptation of ethnic, religious or other prejudices. These are the networks that must be mobilized to carry out their own diplomacy - a citizen's diplomacy. This is where multi-track diplomacy becomes a reality. It does not diminish the significance of state relations: it enhances relations between societies. These networks, in short, are the glue to a human security, which must accompany human development. And these two are the components essential to achieving stability in our region.]

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We have been doing some research at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens on what type of non-governmental links exist between Greece and other countries. Our initial findings - and they are very preliminary - tell us that at present there are 150 non-governmental networks linking Greek civic institutions with other countries in our region. Many of them are local government links, others are academic. Others represent women's groups. The fact is that they exist. They constitute real voluntary initiative.

As Foreign Minister of Greece, I consider them as asset and not a liability to our foreign policy. And, I impatiently await the expansion of their activities and initiatives.

I want to conclude with what I consider to be the proof of the role of civil society, living within and active democracy, in influencing foreign policy. I believe that if ten years ago, I had announced to the public of Greece that they should take any initiative they wished to help Turkish earthquake victims, the reaction would have been modest. We did not have many civic organizations; a climate of fear and mistrust was pervasive. Last August, I immediately called on Greeks to work through local organizations and NGOs to demonstrate their sense of solidarity with Turkey and the victims of that terrible earthquake. The reaction exceeded - to my utter joy - my wildest expectations. Yes, I was delighted that Greeks wanted to help Turks. More profoundly though, I discovered that Greeks had discovered they had a civil society through which they could express themselves, and in doing so they sent a message of the gravest importance to the elite and political leadership of Greece. They wanted to help; they did not fear their neighbour; they preferred the path to peace than the immobility of suspicion.

With that, I do not think I can say any more about the ideas of 1989 and their legacy. The facts speak for themselves.

Thank you.