Andorra, 2005

At the beginning of the third millennium,

faster means of travel that began in the nineteenth

century with railroad technology are today hurtling us

around the globe at even faster speeds. Dramatic

changes are taking place at all levels and in all modes

of communication. From the train, to the automobile

and to the airplane, even in space travel, speed is

erasing spatial barriers. The telegraph, the telephone,

the Internet, cell phones, video conferencing: speed is

altering the way we communicate with one another.

In this new age, immensely significant

developments can take place as more quickly than the

mind can follow them. But as the philosopher Paul

Virillio warns us, with every new technology comes

the potential for a new accident and with increasing

speed comes the threat of ever more horrendous

catastrophes. Natural disasters have become magnified

not only by increases in population, but by the growing

dangers of environmental pollution.

Sixty years after the founding of the United

Nations, we live in a faster world, where we have to be

able to react to events almost immediately. We have to

ensure that even with the feeling of heightened risk

that we live with at the beginning of the twenty-first

century — whether this be due to natural phenomena,

advances in technology, the threat of terrorism or the

frittering away of resources — our will to act is not in

any way diminished. The bar is set very high, but our

capacity to act together as a whole can be just as great.

Another period of technological innovation also

affected dramatic changes in the speed and mode of

communication - the printing press. Let us reflect for

a moment about the effects of those changes and what

we might learn from them. The printing press fostered

a rapid exchange of information that was readily

available to large numbers of people and could not be

censored or controlled, although some institutions tried

very hard to enact such controls. Out of this explosion

of information came the glory of a scientific revolution

but also the sixteenth-century wars of religion and

Europe’s first world war, the Thirty Years War of the

first half of the seventeenth century. The promise of

eventual mastery over the natural world was coupled

with violent attempts to dominate the minds and souls

of man.

In many ways, our own information revolution

has had a similar effect on developments. On the one

hand, we have reason to hope that the problems facing

the world can be solved by technology; on the other

hand, technology has contributed to the rise of

extremism and provided the means to unleash violence

of hitherto unknown proportions.

The radical enlightenment, which first began in

the Netherlands, a small country but one known for its

tolerance and liberty of creative thought, offered new

solutions to the turmoil and sectarian violence of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It developed a

mode of critique that could be separated from religious

truth, and, for the first time in the history of the West, a

fully modern ethical system. What forms might a

radical twenty-first century enlightenment take? I

would rather hope that we will see a new sense of

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human values, a recognition that we are united not only

by our presence in a shrinking world but as members of

the human race.

We are fully aware that even as this explosion in

technology seems to link all countries in the embrace

of a globalized media culture, it feeds old

parochialisms, nationalism and ethnic strife. The gap

between rich and poor, the have and have-not

countries, seems ever wider, even as our

interconnectedness grows in trade and in labour. But

with visions of first-world excess beamed into every

comer of the globe, can anyone be surprised that anger

towards the West increases? Poverty, discrimination,

war, hunger and disease — this is the daily lot for a

great part of humanity. We see the images every day.

We cannot ignore nor can we fear these realities. We

have to face them with real development policies

coupled with good governance and a just system for

trade and dialogue. The Millennium Development

Goals are our collective responsibility.

The legacy of the Renaissance nation State

remains a powerful concept. Our love for our

respective countries and all that this represents to us is

a defining aspect of our identities. So how is it possible

to overcome the fundamental paradox of this

Organization — to link the pride of our national

statehood, which is the source of our material, cultural

and ethnic differences, to the idea of unity, of being

“united”.

In part, the answer seems to lie in the potential

for rebalancing the global economy, but it also requires

a reawakening of those dulled sensibilities that

separate rich from poor, the advantaged from the

disadvantaged, the free from the oppressed. The

Millennium Declaration was a necessary step forward,

and the current tensions over reform should not distract

this body from its ultimate mission.

Whether we are speeding towards challenges that

will take the form of natural or man-made catastrophes,

we can be assured that their effects will no longer be

contained within national borders. We must prepare to

respond to them with a strength and resolve that also

knows no bounds.

Before, I spoke of a small country, the

Netherlands, and of its history. Andorra is also a small

country that believes in tolerance and respect for our

fellow man. Our stable relations with our neighbours,

Andorra’s tradition as a safe haven during European

wars and conflicts, our parliamentary tradition that

stretches back to 1419 and our geopolitical realities, all

make us believe in and defend the virtues and values of

dialogue, pacifism and development, which are at one

with those of the United Nations.

In twelve years of international life, my country

has adopted some 130 international conventions and

has stated its firm belief in international law, as in the

creation of the International Criminal Court. We will

continue in this task, reaffirming our commitment to

multilateralism, and by sending to Parliament for

ratification the conventions on terrorism and human

rights. We also give our support to the creation of a

Council of Human Rights, and we will follow closely

the progress made on a new convention in the struggle

against terrorism.

The United Nations represents a legacy from a

period of conflict which culminated in the Second

World War, the Cold War, and the nuclear stalemate

that followed. While we recognize its imperfections,

we must not forget to acknowledge the wisdom of its

guiding principles: peace between all nations, universal

human rights, and the development of states.

We live in a time when the power of a single

nation is fast becoming an historical illusion. Let us

work towards a new enlightenment, the unity of the

United Nations. It is time to work together for the

United Nations.