PRESS REVIEW FROM SLOVENIA, May 19, 1992 (STA)

Ljubljana, 18 May - DELO: WHAT TO OFFER TO THE WORLD? - With the decision of the U.N. Security Council, Slovenia's admission to the world family of peoples has become a fact and the confirmation of that fact, which some predict will take place as early as this Friday, will only be a formality on the agenda of the General Assembly. The membership of the United Nations marks the fullfilment of an ardent wish of the independent Slovenian nation, opens up a new chapter in our national calendar and heralds "new glorious days of the Slovenian history." But the membership of the U.N. also places before Slovenia some concrete and global-scale strategic tasks. Now, for the first time, it has the historic opportunity to say at the world stage, in its own name and for its own account and not from the Yugoslav seat, what it wishes to and has to say. True, the admission to the U.N. rightly heightens our self-confidence, but we should at the same time endeavour to conceive our membership of the world organization the way the late Kennedy had in mind when saying that his relatives should not ask what America ought to do for them, but rather what they could do for America. Similarly, Slovenia should by all means leave its anonymity and the periodic closing in upon itself and think about what it can offer the world, and not vice versa.