Ladies and Gentlemen

We have come here today to join the celebration of the Council of Europe's golden anniversary. Whether speaking from inside the Council or, poised at its periphery and ready to join, looking from outside in, it is a time for rejoicing, congratulation and even self-congratulation. It is also a time for sober self-evaluation: taking stock, noting the achievements and making an assessment of the road ahead, the challenges and the opportunities.

The anniversary of the Council is not only that of an institution, of an association of sovereign states, but more significantly, it is the evolving demonstration of the significance of the ideas and values that form the foundation of this organization.

Democracy, human rights, respect for the individual, security and stability and a Europe free from conflict are not in themselves new ideas. Born in Europe, they have achieved universal relevance and recognition beyond the borders of Europe itself. What is new however, and barely 50 years old is that one can adopt, advocate and pursue these values through appropriate institutional arrangements. It is in that sense that the Council of Europe is both a means to an end, as well as, a worthwhile objective in itself. The Republic of Armenia wants to join the Council because it is the appropriate institutional arrangement that embodies the values and makes it possible to enshrine them for those who join it.

We have not undertaken our own democratization processes simply in order to join the Council. But we do recognize that having started the process of our reforms, our need to consolidate our achievements, as well as our need to go further with firmness and in an irrevocable manner, we need to integrate ourselves into the institutional framework that is the Council. It is a model, an inspiration, as well as the guarantor of the legitimacy of our own undertakings on the road to democratization.

We have attempted over the last few years to maintain a steady course in preparation of our membership. In doing so, we have continued to look at the way in which those ahead of us, and before us, have attempted to embody the values of the Council of Europe by making those values significant in the conduct of its own affairs. The steps required in making critical transitions from non-democratic political systems to more open political societies cannot be reduced to a mechanical recipe. Sometimes they require legal and constitutional formulas and devices. At times what is necessary is nothing less than the recasting of the entire political culture.
Under normal circumstances, these transformations, these adaptations can and should take a very long time indeed. Some might say it took Europe over 3 centuries to evolve into its present institutional incarnation. It is our desire however to make sure that we do not have to repeat the same waiting period. We must accelerate the process. The model has proved itself and delays can be counterproductive. Europe is no longer an experiment and we ourselves want to move from experimentation to institutionalization.

As we look at these achievements and our aspirations, as we register how far Europe has come and how eager we are to join it, to celebrate together its hundredths anniversary one day, we cannot help but express a certain trepidation, an anxiety if you wish. We are witness to an occasional disjunction, between professed standards and their differential applications, between assertions of equity, fairness and non-discriminatory values and actions and decisions that appear, at least to us, as discriminatory, unfair and arbitrarily selective.

Some of these issues are exacerbated when we look at a map of an expanding Europe. We notice not only a family of democratic or democratizing nations and states, but also a system of equilibrium on a continent of multiple and diverse subregions. The stability and equilibrium within these subregions are the building blocks of a sound architecture for the security and stability in the construct of the Council of Europe.

We are not reluctant to admit that the South Caucasus is a sub region whose democratic construction is not yet fully accomplished. A stable and democratic South Caucasus is a work in progress. As in all works in progress, its promise must not ignore the fragility of its emergent equilibrium. We recognize and we welcome the constructive role that the Council of Europe can and must play to consolidate this subregional equilibrium. But it must not, perhaps inadvertently, by the uneven or inconsistent application of its principles, exacerbate existing imbalances.

Our trepidations do not, and should not, be construed either as self doubt or doubts about the significance of this historic institution, its achievements in the past, as well as the role it has to play in the future of this continent. Realism in this case, perhaps more than arrogance, would lead us to hopefulness. The celebration of this event here in Budapest makes us remember that it was here in 1956, that a people expressed its desire for freedom and emancipation, its resistance to dominance, and its refusal to be deprived of democracy. No geopolitical expert would have ever believed that, this intensely singular act of revolt which took place in the streets of Budapest might one day evolve into Budapest playing host to a united, expanding, democratic Europe.

May we have the courage, all of us here, to see as the assertion of faith and not the expression of presumption, our collective hope to see the Council of Europe celebrate its anniversary in Yerevan.