Speech by Urban AHLIN
MP and Deputy Secretary General for the Social Democratic Party of Sweden

ECOSY-CONGRESS IN VIENNA 16 FEBRUARY 2001

A UNITED EUROPE

First of all I would like to thank ECOSY for the invitation to the congress. I, myself, have a background in SSU and, I can't resist sharing with you one of my earliest memories from my time in SSU. Twenty years ago I was attending a weeklong conference at the conference centre Bommersvik. We learned how to change the world and that nothing is predestined. We learned that everything in society is a result of different forces fighting against each other. Suddenly some older persons went into the room. It was Willy Brandt, Tage Erlander and Bruno Kreisky and some others. We got the opportunity to have a discussion with them. At this time it was a very strong rightwing wave in Sweden and in Europe. So I asked Bruno Kreisky what he thought about this wave and when he thought it would come to an end. The answer he gave me showed in flashlight that I hadn't learned anything. Bruno Kreisky looked at me with sad eyes and simply answered me in four words.

It depends on you!

I can admit to you that I have learned my lesson. It depends on you! That is right! Nothing changes just by accident. Everything is a result of the conflict between ideas. And it depends on you which ideas, or political ideology, will conqueror the other.

The topic of this discussion is enlargement of the European Union.

I'm happy to say that enlargement is the first and foremost priority for us during this six month of our presidency. We Swedes like to consider ourselves as rational and logical thinking people. You all know that there is a widespread scepticism towards the European Union in Sweden. But when it comes to enlargement of EU, Sweden is the country where the support for the Enlargement of the Union is at its highest level. Ironically you could say that the ordinary Swede do think that Sweden should not be a member of the EU but that the rest of Europe should join. So much for that rationality.

The enlargement is a historical opportunity to create a united Europe. Our generation should not be allowed to miss this opportunity. Why is it so important for us Social Democrats to enlarge the European Union?

There are several reasons for putting enlargement as the top priority for EU. The most important is the basic idea of the Union itself. EU was founded after the two world wars to ensure that there would never be another war between the countries in Europe. This is still the most important task for the organisation.

If EU should be able to succeed in being a guarantee for peace and stability in Europe it has to include the entire continent. In terms of security, Europe must be united. This was something the founding fathers understood and EU has always been built on the idea that every country on the European continent that is a democracy and respect human rights should be able to be a member of the Union. After the Nice summit the way is paved for us to live up to these high goals.

If Central and Eastern Europe were kept outside our walls in a state of relative poverty, Europe would be condemned to a growth in cross-border crime and illegal migration. We are much more likely to build our security and their stability by embracing the new democracies into full membership and enabling them to share our levels of prosperity and our standard of freedom. Social democrats must be united in acting as the champions of enlargement and its premise that we will both benefit if the relationship between us is fairer and embodies a core message of social democracy.

There is a discussion in some countries of the enlargement that focus on the risks and on that cheap labour from the east will create unemployment in the west and many other negative attitudes against the enlargement are spread. If you look upon the issue from an ideological point of view, you will see two trends.

On one side are the political forces who are cosmopolitan and outward looking, who welcome foreign contacts as enriching, who are comfortable building international alliances and who are tolerant of people from different ethnic identities. Social Democrats, with our values of solidarity and partnership, and long tradition of internationalism, have all these characteristics and because of that are we in favour of an enlarged union.

On the other side of the political divide are those who are isolationist and inward looking, who feel threatened by foreign contact and who discriminate against other ethnic identities. The unsettling and disruptive effects of globalisation mean that there will be some resonance for such popular chauvinism. But retreating into narrow nationalism and past models of the free-standing nation state will not halt the accelerating pressures of globalisation. Yet today, in many Member States, the Right is the force of opposition to Europe. It can be seen at its most extreme in the offensive hostility to foreigners of Jorg Haider, whose xenophobia is in flat opposition to the tolerance on which Europe is built.

The enormous capacity of the new technology to communicate instantly and around the globe has made distance obsolete as a defining barrier between states or even continents. No national economy is now an island. And every nation state is as interdependent as it is independent.

That's why the global era has reduced the right in most of Europe to opposition. Rightist forces have difficulty in coming to terms with the New World, which puts a premium on working together and imposes a penalty on narrow nationalism. The more the state is working together with other states the more benefits can be shared by its citizens. All states are today interdependent. Narrow nationalist forces are therefor doomed to isolation without any solutions to the problems of today. Problems that needs to be solved together with others.

The enlargement process is now speeding up. The negotiations are not finished yet put they are in most cases rather fast and more and more chapters are closed.

We welcome the decision to enlarge ECOSY with some of the Socialist and Social Democratic Youth organisations from Central and Eastern Europe. With this decision you really show that ECOSY lies ahead of both EU and PES on this topic. I am convinced that your decision to enlarge ECOSY will have a great impact on the discussions in the PES congress in Berlin.
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Finally I would like to quote the ECOSY position paper.

Or more true quote some sentences from our late Party leader and Prime minister Olof Palme that I found in the position paper:

 'When it comes to welfare of the people there is no individual  future, either for individuals or for nations. The future is  common. Together we must share it. Together we must create  it.'

And actually, that is what the European Union is all about. Europe working together. The whole Europe working together. And, do not forget. If you want this to happen, it depends on You!

Thank you!