I am proud to be in such magnificent company, among the members of this committee but even more so the members of the delegation who represent my country. They are a beautiful and highly educated group. We all belong some way or other to the academic world.
On a personal note, I am grateful to be here. This is a day for rejoicing for me because I was part of a team which negotiated the stabilisation and association agreement which comes into full force today. I am proud to share this historic moment. Furthermore, I am enormously content to be here as the event that follows our application to join the European Union for two important reasons. We have been two great countries and nations which have been fountains of culture for the rest of Europe. We are now converging. As much as we share these values, it could also be said that we share problems. We believe that with Ireland's support and following its example we can share the solutions to them.
I am grateful for the questions raised, which I consider crucial, not only for our country but also for the European Union, of which we strive to be part. As a result of membership, the people of Ireland are living in plenitude. The security of the Union depends on a solution been reached in respect of two particular issues on the Balkans peninsula, the most important of which is the social aspect of what is happening, being the sole generator of most of our problems. The other important issue is the environment of poverty in which one of the worst evils of mankind in the new millennium, organised crime, nurtures itself.
Everything from there up to local and regional problems is generated by a lack of a parliamentary system for some. Their servitude to a grey or even a black economy puts them in a situation where they have no choice and they become captives of organised crime and involved in extremism. When one has nothing to lose, one runs behind people on white horses carrying flying banners. This has led us, as Europeans - we have a vast history - into tragedies, the consequences of which we have spent a great deal of time over generations trying to mend.
There is a high cost on the social side of this process for our state and society with the coming together of two different cultures and two different ethnic groups. Kosovo represents a delicate issue that has to be dealt with before it becomes an insurmountable problem that will drain much of the energy the European Union needs to achieve its goal, stipulated during the Spanish Presidency, of becoming one of the most propulsive economic and political blocs in the world by 2020.
We have paid the cost of poverty. Whatever we have to pay now is an investment in prosperity. We know that in some cases things will get worse before they get better. We have to deal with the fact that poverty generates or gives political and economic space for adverse forces. We will deal with this with everything we have but one of the goals in achieving the status of full membership of the European Union is to try to convince it that by sharing the solution, not the problem, the Union can invest in its own stability and security.
We are faced with a very curious structure in the EU enlargement. In our part of the world, Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy are part of this great family, a family which has those standards by which we would like our citizens to live. Whatever we are doing, we are doing for our citizens. Looking at this architecture, however, one sees a problematic region in the middle called the western Balkans in which, unfortunately, we are situated. One can attempt to circumvent it and pretend to establish a unified Union with deep values, because after enlargement, the Union will dedicate much energy to giving more cohesive substance to this enlargement but one cannot build a house of prosperity around a black hole which will eventually and undoubtedly drain its political, economic and security resources.
Yes, we will pay the price for our accession, our framework agreement and the stabilisation and association agreement we have which starts today with the European Union. However, this is where the Union must come together and share part of the solution. What we are doing, as politicians and as a state, is for our citizens to give them a life of European standard. We will, therefore, become like the European Union even without being a member, if I can express it that way. However, from the Union's point of view it would also be an investment in its own stability and prosperity if it helps us along the way like it has helped others, not by having us on the receiving side but by having us integrated and owners of the responsibility which we have, not only to our citizens but also to the common values and Community of which we want to become part.
This is where NATO becomes instrumental for us, if not for Ireland. I understand the viewpoint of many politicians in this great country. However, we have a problem which Ireland does not. Therefore, we need that structure to help us establish a system of solidarity in security terms. It is not a military alliance per se with a great deal of muscle but a system of solidarity in which we will all contribute. Let me put it bluntly. In order to make our region prosperous, we must deal not only with poverty but also insecurity and instability. Believe me, it is much more effective to have us in the European Union or NATO rather than to have the Union and NATO in us. What am I trying to say? Keeping troops and upholding police and other military missions in the region will not solve the problem, it will simply push it under the carpet or hide it. Once everything is back in place or the situation reaches the optimum level where the Union or NATO is not capable or does not want to invest more in such support of our security and stability and the police and troops retreat, the old problems, if they are not mended where they are generated, will explode again in our faces. What will we have done? We will have kept the problems in the region under control and built a consolidated Union around it. Believing the problem has been solved even though it has not, the Union will retreat and the problem will explode again, this time in the centre of an enlarged Union.
Our pretension to join the Union, therefore, is not only selfish or oriented to solving our deep problems which, as the committee knows, we have managed to live with and tried to make the best of. We have implemented whatever we agreed. Our country will probably enter the history of our Continent as the only nation that has solved an internal conflict which had all the elements of other forces getting involved, ranging from organised crime, to mercenaries and highly motivated people. However, we did solve it before it became a civil war. We solved it within our political system with the assistance of NATO and the European Union. We solved it through political means. Today, we sit before this committee as members of parliament who have sworn allegiance to the constitution. The framework agreement is part of this process of consolidation. We know how to deal with things. What we need now, as Ireland needed when it entered the Union, is to share the values in order to be capable of contributing more. Yes, the cost will be tremendous but it will be short term and the profit will come later. The profit will be to our and Europe's benefit.
