Speech by President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen at a dinner hosted by the Lord Mayor of London on 13 May 2004

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I wish to begin, Lord Mayor, by thanking you on behalf of myself, my husband and all of the other Finns present for your kind invitation to a dinner here in the renowned City of London, the centre of the financial world. My three-day visit to Britain could not have had a more pleasant culmination.

There is also a quite special reason why this is a particularly suitable time for my visit. Esteemed Lord Mayor, that is because you are visiting Finland at the end of this month as a guest of the City of Helsinki. With this trip you are continuing a long-standing and strong tradition of visits between the City of London and the Finnish capital. As a Helsinkiite born and bred, I want to welcome you to our city already now.

It is also excellent that during your visit you will open the Public – Private partnership seminar which the Finnish-British Chamber of Commerce is arranging at the British Embassy. We Finns are very pleased that in only a few years the Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of its energetic Chairman Alderman John Stuttard, has become an important promoter of economic cooperation between our countries.

Britain has traditionally been an important, if not the most important, trading partner for Finland. Finnish companies have found the British market to be an attractive place where doing business is reasonably straightforward. The positive attitude that both countries take to liberalisation of international trade has helped.

The structure of our exports to Britain, and to other countries, has evolved in recent years. As recently as fifteen years ago, most of our exports to this country were forest products. Now the range is much more diverse and includes high-tech products from every sector of industry. One could say that the latest addition to our export range is light music, because last week’s top ten singles included two by Finnish artists.

Our ambassador has told me that he is often asked how Finland’s phenomenal development and economic growth have been possible in such a short time. He says he always has the same answer: "Education, education, education"!

Esteemed Lord Mayor, your journey will not take you as far as Finnish Lapland, which over 60,000 British people visit each year to see the world’s only real Father Christmas. However, you will be going north – and of course north is a relative term; 550 kilometres north of Helsinki, but just a bit north of geographical centre point of Finland – to see our technology city Oulu, where many companies like Nokia have operations. As you know, this Finnish high-tech company enjoys a strong leadership position in the mobile phone market also in Britain. In fact, I have just visited one of Nokia’s facilities in Southwood.

I know that during your visit to Oulu you will be told some marvellous stories about relations between our countries and events. I don’t want to spoil your pleasure for you now, so I’ll leave it to your hosts in Oulu to tell the stories themselves.

Your journey will continue from Finland to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which will have been full members of the EU for a month by the time you visit them. You can well imagine how pleasing we Finns especially find this historic accession. We see EU enlargement as a central factor strengthening security and stability in Europe. The Baltic was as chilly as ice during the Cold War, but now it has become literally a sea of co-operation.

Finland’s geographical status as a country sharing a border with Russia gives us an excellent vantage point to follow developments there. The Russian economy is growing strongly right now and the country’s energy and raw materials resources as well as its well-educated population provide a major incentive for investment and economic co-operation. However, the incomplete evolution of the rule of law in Russia is slowing co-operation. The EU is Russia’s most important trading partner and there is not the slightest doubt that the future will see Russia orienting herself more and more towards the EU.

For Finland, EU membership has been a really useful and important factor in the development of our economy and competitiveness. Enlargement will boost EU’s international weight and prospects for economic growth and employment.

The European Union has become a single market of over 450 million citizens, and it has set itself an objective to be the world’s most competitive economy by 2010. Progress towards achieving this must be made by developing new corporate activities and locating investments in Europe.

Integration and globalisation have made it easier for companies to locate in the countries that suit their operations best. Jobs are created in some places and disappear in others. Although the number of jobs is growing in many places, unemployment remains a major problem in the world.

Capital moves quite easily across borders. By comparison, labour has far less possibilities to be mobile despite all of the liberalisation that has taken place. Many of the old European Union member states have imposed limits on labour from the new members entering their labour markets. This, too, shows what a delicate matter is involved in cross-border movement of people.

We in Finland have some experience of this, because thousands of Finns have come to Britain, and especially to London, both to study and to work since we joined the EU in 1995. Nearly every single one of the biggest companies in the City of London has young, well-educated Finnish employees. Your universities likewise have thousands of Finnish students. We can regard this as a positive matter, because many of them return to Finland more experienced and better educated, and those who remain here increase mutual understanding and interaction between our countries. Finland is also a recipient of foreign students as our universities provide more and more courses in English – and free of charge.

I also bring to London a hearty greeting from the Eurozone, to which Finland has belonged since its very beginning! Finns were in fact the first people in the world to have the euro as their currency one hour before the rest of Europe. I guess that the euro is not the most popular of discussion themes in Britain, but it has proved quite beneficial for Finland, whose minor currency was vulnerable to the winds of the world. It has increased the stability of our economy.

Finland is prepared to support projects that make Europe a more competitive global actor. We are among the world’s leading countries in terms of the percentage of GDP we spend on research and development. In our view, Europe should combine its forces better also in the field of research. In recent times, Finland has attracted international attention as one of the world’s most competitive and least-corrupt economies.

Esteemed Lord Mayor, I want to thank you warmly once again for the cordial reception and fine meal. I wish you personally all the best on your visit to Finland. Now that the spring has reached us too, you won’t, unfortunately, be able to enjoy the experience of swimming in an opening cut from the ice. This time you will have to be content with having your post-sauna swim in open water with a temperature of five degrees.

It must be admitted that the first contact between our countries was not particularly fortunate. It happened in 1156 when King Eric of Sweden sent Henry, the English-born Bishop of Uppsala, to convert the Finns to Catholicism. Legend has it that a Finnish peasant named Lalli killed Henry with an axe on the ice of Lake Köyliönjärvi. The reason for this harsh treatment has remained unclear, but there are many theories.

However, I don’t want to frighten you, because we have changed during the last 850 years and the relations between our countries and peoples have been excellent and warm ever since that regrettable incident.

I wish continuing success to the City of London, Britain and its citizens as well as to warm relations between our peoples! Now I propose a toast in honour of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London!