Interview with European journalists at Rhein Main Air Base, Germany

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 10, 1999

Vision for Southeast Europe

Q. Mr. President, you are fully right saying this is not about politics. Something about politics, sir - people in Macedonia, both Albanians and Macedonians, are very much concerned for their future. And I think all nations from the Balkans are very much concerned for the perspectives of the region. We are seeing that you're confronting Mr. Milosevic for almost a decade on the tactical level. What we are not seeing is that anyone is offering to the region any kind of a plan for a wider integration.

It's not only of money; it's not only a Marshall plan; it's something that people will have to hope for, something which will show their perspectives as a region. Do you think about some kind of developing a plan?

The President. Yes.

Q. Will you elaborate a little bit, sir?

The President. Yes. As I have worked on this over the last 6 years, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo, it has become clear to me that the United States and Europe have spent perhaps - well, I wouldn't say too much time because we had to do it, but we have spent most of our time trying to keep bad things from happening or, if something bad happens, to try to either reverse it or minimize it. We have spent too little time imagining how to make good things happen in the Balkans and in southeastern Europe. And yet, much good has happened.

The President of Bulgaria said at the NATO meeting, he said, "The problem we have is that we have freedom, but we have no prosperity, and we don't have a vision of where we're all going together in the future." And I think that there are a lot of myths about your part of the world that have caught on in Europe and in the United States - you know, that, "Well, the Balkans people have fought for centuries, and there will always be contention. It's just a problem to be managed." And that, I think, is a violation of, first of all, the accurate history of the region and, secondly, of the integrity and potential of the people.

So several weeks ago, for about a week before the NATO Summit, I went out to San Francisco and talked to the American newspaper editors and said that we could never hope to have the right sort of future for all of Europe until we had a positive vision for southeastern Europe, that included not only an economic revitalization package that would embrace, obviously, the people who are in conflict today but the larger region of southeastern Europe, but a political package that would both tie the free nations closer to the rest of Europe and bring them closer to each other.

I think that one of the things that we have learned in the aftermath of the cold war is that there are plenty of things, forces, that will pull people apart if they're exploited - religious and ethnic differences - and it's no good for me or anyone else just to stand up and keep giving a sermon about how, well, people should be nice to each other, and they should pull together. There needs to be a magnet, a stronger force pulling people together than the forces pulling people apart. That means there has to be an economic revitalization program that embraces the region. That means there has to be a political strategy to integrate the region more closely to Europe and to bring people together.