[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[June 2, 2000]
[Pages 1064-1068]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 1064]]


Remarks on Receiving the International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, 
Germany
June 2, 2000

    Ladies and gentlemen, Chancellor Schroeder, Lord Mayor Linden, 
President Rau, President Havel, His Majesty Juan Carlos, 
President Halonen, previous laureates, members 
of the Charlemagne Foundation, leaders of the clergy and cathedral, and 
members of the German and American Governments. Let me begin by thanking 
the lord mayor for his welcome and his wise words and my good friend 
Chancellor Schroeder for his kind comments and his visionary statement.
    The rare distinction you have bestowed upon me, I am well aware, is 
in large measure a tribute to the role the American people have played 
in promoting peace, freedom, and security in Europe for the last 50 
years. I feel the honor is greater still because of the remarkable 
contributions made by previous recipients of this prize toward our 
common dream of European union.
    Of course, as has already been said, that dream has its roots here 
in Aachen, an ancient shrine that remains at the center of what it means 
to be European, the seat of an empire, a place of healing waters, peace 
treaties, furious fighting. With its liberation at the end of World War 
II, Aachen became perhaps the first German city to join the postwar 
democratic order. Today, as I have seen, Aachen is both a sanctuary for 
sacred relics dating back to the dawn of Christianity and a crucible of 
Europe's new information economy.
    Here, Charlemagne's name summons something glimpsed for the first 
time during his life, a sense that the disparate people of this Earth's 
smallest continent could actually live together as participants in a 
single civilization. In its quest for unity, even at the point of a 
sword, and in its devotion to the new idea that there was actually 
something called Europe, the Carolingian idea surpassed what had come 
before, and to an extent, it guides us still.
    Twelve centuries ago, out of the long, dark night of endless tribal 
wars, there emerged a light that somehow has survived all the ravages of 
time, always burning brighter, always illuminating Europe's way to the 
future. Today, that shining light of European union is a matter of the 
utmost importance, not just to Europeans but to everyone on this planet, 
for Europe has shown the world humanity at its best and at its worse. 
Europe's most violent history was caused by men claiming the mantle of 
Charlemagne, men who sought to impose European union for their own ends 
without the consent of the people. History teaches, therefore, that 
European union, not to mention transatlantic unity, must come from the 
considered judgment of free people and must be for worthy purposes that 
when threatened must be defended.
    The creators of this prize and its first winners clearly understood 
that. We often say that theirs was the generation that rebuilt Europe 
after World War II, but actually they did far more. They built the 
foundation of something entirely new, a Europe united in common 
commitment to democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. That 
achievement endured for half a century, but only for half a continent.
    Then, 11 years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain parted, 
and at last the prospect of a Europe whole and free opened before you. 
All of us will remember 1989 for the Wall crumbling to the powerful 
strains of Schiller's ``Ode to Joy.'' It was a moment of great 
liberation, like 1789 or 1848, a particular triumph for the German 
people, whose own unification defied great adversity and set the stage 
for the larger unification of Europe.
    Too often we forget that 1989 was also a time of grave uncertainty 
about the future. There were doubts about NATO's future, reinforced 
later by its slowness to confront evil in Bosnia and Croatia. There were 
fears that the EU's efforts to come closer together would either fail 
or, succeeding, would fatally divide Europe and the United States. The 
countries of Central and Eastern Europe feared becoming a gray zone of 
poverty and insecurity. Many wondered if Russia was headed for a 
Communist backlash or a nationalist coup.
    In January of 1994 I came to Europe for the first time as President, 
both to celebrate Europe's new birth of freedom and to build upon it. 
Then I spoke of a new conception of European security, based not on 
divided defense

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blocs but instead on political, military, and cultural integration. This 
new security idea required, as has already been said, the transatlantic 
alliance to do for Europe's East what we did for Europe's West after 
World War II.
    Together, we set about doing that. We lowered trade barriers, 
supported young democracies, adapted NATO to new challenges, and 
expanded our Alliance across Europe's old divide. We made clear, and I 
repeat today, that NATO's door remains open to new members. The EU took 
in three new members, opened negotiations with a dozen others, created a 
single market with one currency.
    We've stood by Russia, struggling to build their own democracy, and 
opened the way to a partnership between Russia and NATO and between 
Ukraine and NATO. We defended the values at the heart of our vision of 
an undivided Europe, acting to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and 
forging what I believe will be an enduring peace there.
    We acted in Kosovo in one of our Alliance's finest moments. A year 
ago in Germany we launched a Stability Pact for southeastern Europe. We 
stand, still, with crusaders for tolerance and freedom, from Croatia to 
Slovakia to Serbia. And we do encourage reconciliation between Turkey 
and Greece.
    Over the last 11 years, of course, there have been some setbacks. 
But unquestionably, Europe today is more united, more democratic, more 
peaceful than ever, and both Europeans and Americans should be proud of 
that.
    Think how much has changed. Borders built to stop tanks now manage 
invasions of tourists and trucks. Europe's fastest growing economies are 
now on the other side of the old Iron Curtain. At NATO Headquarters the 
flags of 19 Allies and 27 partners fly. In Central Europe and Eastern 
Europe, the realistic dream of membership in the EU and NATO has sparked 
the resolution of almost every old ethnic and border dispute. And, 
finally--finally--our friend Vaclav Havel has 
spent more years being President than he spent in prison.
    In southeastern Europe, the Bosnians are still fighting, but now at 
the ballot box. Croatia is a democracy. Soldiers from almost every 
European country, including bitter former adversaries, are keeping the 
peace together in Kosovo. Last year as German troops marched through the 
Balkan countryside, they were hailed as liberators. What a way to end 
the 20th century.
    In the meantime, Russia has stayed on the path of democracy, though 
its people have suffered bitter economic hardships, political and 
criminal violence, and the tragedy of the war in Chechnya, which yet may 
prove to be self-defeating because of the civilian casualties. Still, it 
has withdrawn its troops from the Baltic States, accepted the 
independence of its neighbors, and completed the first democratic 
transition in its thousand-year history.
    European unity really is producing something new under the Sun, 
common institutions that are bigger than the nation-state and, at the 
same time, a devolution of democratic authority downward. Scotland and 
Wales have their own Parliaments. This week Northern Ireland, where my 
family has its roots, restored its new government. Europe is alive with 
the sound of ancient place names being spoken again, Catalonia, 
Piedmonte, Lombardy, Silesia, Transylvania, Uthenia, not in the name of 
separatism but in the spirit of healthy pride and heritage.
    National sovereignty is being enriched by lively local voices making 
Europe safer for diversity, reaffirming our common humanity, reducing 
the chance that European disunity will embroil Europe and America in 
another large conflict.
    One thing, thankfully, has not changed. Europe's security remains 
tied to America's security. When it is threatened, as it was in Bosnia 
and Kosovo, we, too, will respond. When it is being built, we, too, will 
always take part.
    Europe's peace sets a powerful example to other parts of the world 
that remain divided along ethnic, religious, and national lines. Even 
today, Europe has internal disputes over fundamental questions of 
sovereignty, political power, and economic policy, disputes no less 
consequential than those over which people still fight and die in other 
parts of the world. However, instead of fighting and dying over them 
now, Europeans argue about them in Brussels in a spirit of cooperation 
and mutual respect.
    The whole world should take notice of this. If western Europe could 
come together after the carnage of World War II, if central Europe could 
do it following 50 years of communism, it can be done everywhere on this 
Earth.
    Of course, for all of the positive developments and our good 
feelings today, the job of building a united Europe is certainly not 
finished, and it is important not to take all this self-congratulation 
too far. Instead, we should focus today

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on two big pieces of unfinished business and one enduring challenge.
    The first piece of unfinished business is to make southeast Europe 
fully, finally, and forever a part of the rest of Europe. That is the 
only way to make peace last in that bitterly divided region.
    It cannot be done by forcing people to live together; there is no 
bringing back the old Yugoslavia. It cannot be done by giving every 
community its own country, army, and flag. Shifting so many borders in 
the Balkans will only shake the peace further.
    Our goal must be to debalkanize the Balkans. We must help them to 
create a magnet that will bring people together, a magnet more powerful 
than the polarizing pull of their old hatreds. That's what the Stability 
Pact that Germany helped to establish is designed to do, challenging the 
nations of southeast Europe to reform their economies and strengthen 
their democracies and pledging more than $6 billion from the rest of us 
to support their efforts. Now we must turn quickly those pledges into 
positive changes in the lives of ordinary people and steadily bring 
those nations into Western institutions.
    We must also remain unrelenting in our support for a democratic 
transition in Serbia. For if there is to be a future for democracy and 
tolerance in this region, there must be no future for Mr. 
Milosevic and his policy of ethnic hatred 
and ethnic cleansing.
    If southeastern Europe is to be fully integrated into the continent, 
Turkey also must be included. I applaud the EU's decision to treat 
Turkey as a real candidate for membership. I hope both Turkey and the EU 
will take the next steps. It will be good for Turkey, good for southeast 
Europe, good for more rapid reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and 
the resolution of Cyprus, and good for the entire world, which is still 
too divided over religious differences.
    Our second piece of unfinished business concerns Russia. We must 
work to build a partnership with Russia that encourages stability, 
democracy, and cooperative engagement with the West and full integration 
with global institutions.
    Only time will tell what Russia's ultimate role in Europe will be. 
We do not yet know if Russia's hard-won democratic freedoms will endure. 
We don't know yet whether it will define its greatness in yesterday's 
terms or tomorrow's. The Russian people will make those decisions.
    Though Russia's transformation is incomplete, there clearly is 
reason for hope in Russia's remarkable journey over these last few 
years, from dictatorship to democracy, from communism to the market, 
from empire to nation-state, from adversary to partner in reducing the 
threat of weapons of mass destruction. Because the stakes are so high, 
we must do everything we can to encourage a Russia that is fully 
democratic and united in its diversity, a Russia that defines its 
greatness not by dominance of its neighbors but by the dominant 
achievements of its people and its partnership, a Russia that should be, 
indeed, must be, fully part of Europe.
    That means no doors can be sealed shut to Russia, not NATO's, not 
the EU's. The alternative would be a future of harmful competition 
between Russia and the West and the end of our vision of an undivided 
continent.
    As Winston Churchill said when he received the Charlemagne Prize in 
the far darker days of 1956, ``In a true unity of Europe, Russia must 
have her part.'' Of course, Russia may very well decide it has no 
interest in formally joining European or transatlantic institutions. If 
that happens, we must make sure that, as the EU and NATO expand, their 
eastern borders become gateways to Russia, not barriers to trade, 
travel, and security cooperation. We must build real institutional links 
with Russia, as NATO has begun to do. Of course, it won't be easy, and 
there is still mistrust to be overcome on both sides, but it is possible 
and absolutely necessary.
    The steps necessary to bring southeast Europe and Russia into the 
embrace of European unity illustrate the continued importance of the 
transatlantic alliance to both Europe and America. The enduring 
challenge we face, therefore, is to preserve and strengthen our alliance 
as Europe continues its coming together.
    We have agreed on the principles. We have laid the foundations. But 
the future we're building will look very different from anything we have 
ever known. In a generation, I expect the EU will have as many as 30 
members, from the Baltics to the Balkans to Turkey; a community of 
unprecedented cultural, political, and economic diversity and vitality. 
It will be a bigger Europe than Charlemagne ever dared dream, a 
reflection of our recognition that ultimately Europe is a unifying idea 
as much as

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a particular place, an expansive continent of different peoples who 
embrace a common destiny, play by the same rules, and affirm the same 
truths: that ethnic and religious hatred are unacceptable; that human 
rights are inalienable and universal; that our differences are a source 
of strength, not weakness; that conflicts must be resolved by arguments, 
not by arms.
    I believe America must continue to support Europe's most ambitious 
unification efforts. And I believe Europe should want to strengthen our 
alliance even as you grow stronger. The alliance has been the bedrock of 
our security for half a century. It can be the foundation on which our 
common future is built.
    Oh, it's easy to point to our differences. Many do. On my bad days, 
I do. But let's keep a healthy perspective. Consider these news 
headlines about U.S.-European dispute: ``Allies Complain of Washington's 
Heavy Hand,'' ``France to NATO: Non, Merci,'' ``U.S. Declares Economic 
Warfare on Allies,'' ``Protestors Rally Against American Arms Plan.'' 
The first of those headlines is from the Suez crisis in 1956. The second 
is from 1966, when France left NATO's military command. The third is 
from 1981, the Siberian Pipeline crisis; the fourth, from 1986, during 
the debate about deploying intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe.
    Yes, we've always had our differences, and being human and 
imperfect, we always will. But the simple fact is, since Europe is an 
idea as much as a place, America also is a part of Europe, bound by ties 
of family, history, and values.
    More than ever, we are also actually connected. Underwater cables 
allow us to send staggering amounts of E-mail and E-commerce to each 
other instantaneously. A billion dollars in trade and investment goes 
back and forth every day, employing more than 14 million people on both 
sides of the Atlantic.
    And there is the enduring connection, the 104,000 Americans who lie 
in military cemeteries across Europe. Today's Europe would not be 
possible without them. And whatever work I have done to merit your prize 
was built on their sacrifice.
    So my friends, we must nourish the ties that bind us as we work to 
resolve honest disagreements and to overcome potentially harmful 
misperceptions on both sides of the Atlantic. Let me mention just two.
    There is a perception right now in America that Europe doesn't 
always carry its fair share of our mutual responsibilities. Yet 
Europeans are providing more than 80 percent of both the troops keeping 
the peace in Kosovo and the funds for economic reconstruction there. And 
few Americans know that in our own backyard, Europeans paid for more 
than 60 percent of all aid to Central America when it was ravaged by 
Hurricane Mitch and a third of all support for peace in Guatemala.
    At the same time, there is a perception in Europe that America's 
power--military, economic, cultural--is at times too overbearing. 
Perhaps our role in NATO's air campaign in Kosovo accentuated such 
fears. But in Kosovo, our power was exercised in alliance with Europe, 
in pursuit of our shared interest in European peace and stability, in 
defense of shared values central to the goal of European integration.
    If, after Kosovo, European countries strengthen their own ability to 
act with greater authority and responsibility in times of crisis, while 
maintaining our transatlantic link, I think that is a very good thing. 
There is no contradiction between a strong Europe and a strong 
transatlantic partnership.
    I would also like to mention that our partnership, as the lord mayor 
pointed out, and as Chancellor Schroeder said, remains profoundly 
important, not only to ourselves, but to the rest of the world as well. 
Together, we account for more than half the world's economy and 90 
percent of its humanitarian aid. If we're going to win the fight against 
terrorism, organized crime, the spread of weapons of mass destruction; 
if we want to promote ethnic, religious, and racial tolerance; if we 
want to combat global warming and environmental degradation, fight 
infectious disease, ease poverty, and close the digital divide, clearly, 
we must do these things together.
    Europe and America should draw strength from our transatlantic 
alliance. Europe should not be threatened by it, and America must not 
listen to those who say we should go it alone. America must remain 
Europe's good partner and good ally.
    Lord Palmerston's rule that countries have no permanent alliances, 
only permanent interests, simply does not apply to our relationship. For 
America has a permanent interest in a permanent alliance with Europe. 
Our shared future

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is deeply rooted in our shared history. The American Revolution, after 
all, stemmed in part from the Seven Years War, which in turn stemmed 
from a treaty signed here in Aachen in 1748.
    Now, a few days ago, I stood at the mouth of the Tagus River in 
Lisbon. From that spot over five centuries ago, brave Europeans began to 
explore the far reaches of our planet. They traveled unimaginable 
distances and conquered indescribable adversity on their way to find 
Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In their wake, the sons and daughters of 
this continent came across the Atlantic to populate places they called 
New Spain, New England, New France, New Netherlands, Nova Scotia, New 
Sweden, in short, a new Europe. Without the longing for a new Europe, 
there never would have been an America in the first place.
    Now, as the longing for a new Europe takes root on the soil of the 
old continent, we should never let a sense of history's inevitability 
cloud our wonder at how astonishingly Europeans changed the rest of the 
world through enterprise, imagination, and their ability to grow, 
qualities that always will define Europe's identity far more accurately 
than any mapmaker ever will.
    In the years ahead, as pilgrims of peace come here to Aachen, I hope 
they will reflect on the similarity of the two monuments enshrined here: 
first, the magnificent cathedral holding Charlemagne's mortal remains, 
begun in his lifetime, added to throughout the Middle Ages, repaired in 
the 20th century, when our failure to keep the peace required it; and 
second, the peace and unity that three generations have been building 
for five decades now in Europe, a work far from complete, perhaps never 
to be completed, but completely worthy of our best labors and dreams. 
Let us keep building this cathedral, the cathedral of European unity, on 
the foundation of our alliance for freedom. Because I have tried to lay 
a stone or two in my time, I am honored and humbled to accept this 
prize.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 12:45 p.m. in the Katschof Courtyard at the 
Aachen Cathedral. In his remarks, he referred to Chancellor Gerhard 
Schroeder of Germany; Lord Mayor Jurgen Linden of Aachen; President 
Johannes Rau of Germany; President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic; 
King Juan Carlos of Spain; President Tarja Halonen of Finland; and 
President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 
(Serbia and Montenegro).