UN General Assembly
1991

I should like also to extend my warmest welcome to the seven new Members which have just joined the United Nations: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - whose newly-recovered independence has given us cause for rejoicing - as well as the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Once again it has been the wish of the Spanish Government that the King, by virtue of the functions conferred upon him under the Constitution, should address this universal gathering. He does so on behalf of a country which was one of the first in history to decide to become a nation-State, and which as such has been contributing since the dawn of the modern age to the birth and normative development of international society. Thus, as a constitutional monarch, I represent an ancient nation and also a young people which, for this reason and also because it has recovered democracy and freedom, faces the future with hope and enthusiasm.