Future enlargment of EU, panel pre-introduction
(Ales Vidmar, May 21th 2005, Skopje, Macedonia – International Student Conference of the Borjan Tanevski Memorial Fund supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation)
To begin, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude for the invitation to the Tanevski family, Konrad Adenauer Stifftung for the support of this great project and Dame Damevski for nurturing me during my stay in Macedonia. This second invitation may mean that my participation last year was valuable; hopefully my performance this time will also reach the expectations. Fortunately, his excellence, the honorable Monsignor Edvard Edi Mitevski is with us today, and with the strong representation and the debate so far my job will not be hard.
I am glad to be a part of this great initiative. Not stopping in saying that it is a great initiative, let me articulate exactly why I think this is a great inititative.
Firstly, BT Memorial Fund and BT Fellowship are facilitating a debate on the issues concerning EU. EU membership is now a feasible option for the region and may provide a vision to spark and an engine for its re-development. Furthermore its special positive feature is in its focus on young people: their education and careers, future are linked to this great on-going project of building the new and wholesome Europe. ISC and BT fellowship are on the mark.
Secondly, Borjan Tanevski fellowship is and will be an asset to the young winners, future leaders. BT fellowships will mean an asset in applying to new and more challenging opportunities: this is a world where awards matter. But the beauty of this award is not only in winning but in offering an extracurricular competition where all the competitors show that they are people with courage, with ambition and have the making of the future intellectual elite.
The qualities BT fellows have, are: leadership, entrepreneurship, dedication to achieve European Union membership, inspiration. Nderim Rudi shows a great potential in that respect. And these are the same characteristics as were embodied in Borjan and in another person, a great European Konrad Adenauer, it is a significant fact that the KAS is supporting this initiative that is becoming a yearly programme.
I remain dedicated to the project not only because of the objective aforementioned qualities of the project and the subjective love for Macedonia and Macedonians, I remain also because of the personal relationship with Borjan Tanevski. I remain, because of the loss, we still feel and need to remember. Memory of those no longer with us is what makes us human, humane. Not to be misunderstood, I am aware that no loss is greater than the one of parents’ and sister’s, family’s and best friends. BT memorial fund brings those together, too. Borjan’s passing reminds us, that cruelly and unfairly, life can even in close to perfect conditions be so fragile and dependent on outside forces or in Borjan’s case unimaginable internal malign forces.
Borjan’s case may show that we are dependent on our delicate existence, BUT I see it as a way how we can survive in memories and through ideas that fueled us and survive. Ideas greater than a man, greater than a woman. Borjan Tanevski Fellowship does both – it focuses on individuals showing the capacity to push and think for a better future and it also focuses on building transnational institutional links. That is why I think this event, and program are a great opportunity to open this space and connect nations in the Balkans through individual and institutional ties and I pledge to assist in what I can, hope that the rest of the audience will do too.