Belgrade, 7 November 2009
President Tadić's speech at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Dear citizens,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Exactly twenty years ago, on 9th November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down – the symbol of all divisions among people and families, the symbol of the clash of political influence on the Continent of Europe in the second half of the last century.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall was the real political end of the twentieth century, in which ideological conflicts and ravages of war brought into question not only the future of Europe, but the survival of the whole of mankind as well. That is why the Fall of the Berlin Wall did not only mark a new great chapter in the historz of Germany, but it also made possible the realization of the vision and new strategic dimension of the unification of Europe—a political and peaceful project that has no comparison in the recent history of mankind.

That is why the Fall of the Berlin Wall is such a huge and important event in our shared history that it did not truly happen could on that single day, or because of the will of its political contemporaries only: Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush Senior and Helmut Kohl.

Almost a quarter of a century earlier, another man, John F. Kennedy, uttered the famous sentence that, in the meantime, became a political monument of sorts: “Ich bin ein Berliner”, thus equating himself with man as an individual, a victim of devastating Nazi politics and new threatening ideologies.

In the years that preceded the day we are here to celebrate, millions of people decided to restore their sovereign democratic rights by crossing the line of unfreedom to shake off the shackles of the Cold War and totalitarian regimes.

In the face of the decades-long wave of these millions of individual decisions, the Berlin Wall was compelled to come down.

The citizens of Berlin walked towards each other that night, jut like European people attracted by the idea of peace, freedom, democracy, an open market and mutual solidarity.

However, at the time of this common ascent of European civilization, the region of the former Yugoslavia rapidly began to decend into the crash of fundamental values, and new tragic conflicts came to the fore.

The peoples of the Western Balkans took an opposite historical direction: from unification to divisions and creation of new nation-states, from the rule of law to lawlessness, from peace to war, building new walls and establishing a decade-long isolation.

On 5th October 2000, Serbia tore down the newly created “Berlin Walls” erected by the destructive policies of an undemocratic regime in the ‘90s that had separated us from the entire world. At present, our citizens are faced with one more wall to be pulled down in the near future, the wall that prevented us from moving freely throughout Europe, and forcing us to queue, humiliated, for visas in the long lines in front of foreign embassies.

The entire Western Balkans will tear down its “Berlin Walls” only once all the countries of our region become full members of the European Union, when the process of the unification of Europe will be fully completed. It will be only then, when the day that we are all marking here, 9th of November 1989, would get its full meaning and political dimension.

As far as Serbia is concerned, European Union membership is Serbia’s central strategic priority and the present-day unified Germany is playing a special role in the achievement of this goal. Through courage and devotion, the citizens of Germany fulfilled their historical dream of unification, and the vision of a united Europe has continued to exist. The support of friendly Germany to Serbia on its road to EU membership is of invaluable importance. For a strong and stable Serbia, a member of the EU, will be the guarantee of a better life of its citizens but also the cornerstone of the stability of the Western Balkans, which is in the common European interest.

Thank you.