Yet even such a well-established and resilient institution as NATO cannot shoulder alone the burden of ensuring cooperation, prosperity and peaceful progress across Europe. Fortunately for this purpose we also have the European Community. It is the other essential component in our Western institutional framework and it too is undergoing a process of change and renewal in its striving to achieve an ever closer union of its members. While NATO provides the stability and the transatlantic link, the European Community provides dynamism, creativity and the basis of an ever more fruitful economic inter-dependence. Together with an expanded role for the CSCE, both a strong NATO and a strong European Community are the prerequisites for a Europe of progress and prosperity.
None can succeed without the others.
At a time when the entire international system is being transformed, no government or alliance can fully control the powerful forces that make change inevitable. But by working together we can steer that change and produce an outcome in which there are no losers, only winners. I am vastly more hopeful in this respect now that agreement has been reached on membership of a united Germany in our Alliance. This will increase stability for all. It is the gateway to overcoming division, and to establishing a partnership between Western Europe and the newly democratising nations which will be a key factor in their economic and social modernization.