The time has come for a revitalized multilateral mentality to meet effectively and firmly the challenge of the new global and interconnected threats … - Árpád Göncz

The lessons and tasks emerging from global conferences and from other areas of United Nations activity have a twofold nature. On the one hand, each of them, having its undisputed merits, appears to lend itself to universal collective action. On the other hand, taken in their totality, they require not only that we set our priorities but also a thorough efficiency probe and maybe a fuller use of the principle of subsidiarity as well.

Globalization, integration and interdependence can and should be important driving forces towards environmentally sound sustainable development. Regrettably, in our contemporary world we see only too often patterns of disintegration and the absence of the rule of law, accompanied by flagrant violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. These constitute not only an affront to human dignity, but they have the adverse effect of hindering sustainable human development and most often bring about a fatal degradation of the environment as well.

For a thousand years we have held the view that the fate and future of Hungary and Europe are indivisible. The key to the survival and development of the Hungarian people in the heart of the continent, in the Carpathian Basin, can only be inseparably bound to political and economic Europe.