"The Development in the Baltic Sea Region in a Historical and Political Perspective", Riga, June 20, 2005

 
 
Distinguished guests, members & partners of Baltic Development Forum, dear friends!

It is my privilege, once again, to bring a closure to our discussions and suggest some overall conclusions from the past three days. From my perspective, the Summit has been extremely productive. I thank you for that since no such event can succeed without all of you as committed and supportive partners and participants.

It was not only a privilege to have the President of the European Commission here at the summit. Much more significant, it was an important recognition of the Baltic Sea Region as such, and a sign that we have a strong ally in Brussels. I find this very encouraging for our future work.

At a time when some of the countries in the EU are turning the focus towards themselves, both President Barroso and the distinguished businessman Michael Treschow gave us some very thoughtful recommendations.

They both underlined the importance of an open economy and not to turn to protectionist behaviour. They both urged us to take advantage of the vast opportunities in the global economy and not be afraid of change. These are very important messages also for us in the Baltic Sea Region. They also stressed the need to be ambitious and strive for excellence in this region being a driving force in Europe.

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The overall themes for this summit were Competitiveness and Innovation and both of them have been extensively addressed in the numerous sessions over the past three days.

Summing up is not an easy task and it’s not my ambition to cover all aspects of this summit. Far from that! But let me cover some of the aspects.

The countries in the Baltic Sea Region are performing very well in various areas such as competitiveness, labour productivity, budget management, research and development. These results are confirmed both by the World Economic Forum’s 2005 Global Competitiveness Report and by the State of the Region Report 2005.

The region’s performance indicates that it is moving in the right direction towards achieving the Lisbon goals. This is why the Baltic Sea region can be viewed, in Jose Barroso’s words, as a "Regional beacon" for the rest of Europe. But it is also clear now that the Lisbon strategy must go further and show more clout. Instead of building new walls, we must tear down the remaining ones. Instead of looking at the Lisbon goals as the ceiling, let us consider them the floor.

To do so we must move on and act on a number of concrete leads as it has been discussed and recommended during this Summit.

We must be aware of some of the dark clouds turning up on the horizon and moving towards us. In general, our competitive advantages are eroding. We in the Baltic Sea Region must keep a firm eye on the overall perspectives of growth and prosperity and more specifically on jobs, innovation, entrepreneurship, research and education.

This is crucial; not only to sustain our overall leading position on the Lisbon goals and to build a modern and knowledge based economy, but even more so, to establish the region as a centre of global excellence. This must be the ambition if we want to be prepared for the global challenges facing all of Europe.

So, what are the actions to be taken next?

I can only support Mr. Barroso in his work and his vision of Europe. I do not hesitate to say that we in the Baltic Sea Region want to back the European Commission’s work on implementing the new Lisbon Strategy on growth and jobs with a regional supplement to the European and national policies and strategies. We can do that by developing a regional action plan. In this regard, Baltic Development Forum will continue to issue a State of the Region Report that can track implementation and measure performance on an annual basis.

Today we have a Baltic Sea Region that is a centre of gravity. It "guides" other countries and regions standing up to common global challenges. We certainly did get Mr. Barroso’s recognition for what has been accomplished so far.

But it is clear that we can do even better if we take full advantage of our joint competitive strengths in the region and use it to create new jobs and more prosperity. The Nordic countries are excellent examples of what it means to innovate and not imitate. In addition, the 4 new EU countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) are transforming themselves into Baltic tigers and have created attractive business environments with impressive economic growth. We are very lucky that we have such reform friendly partners in our region. We should look to them for inspiration in our own reform efforts, and we should start now.

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Russia, too, has enormous potential as a major market and the source of huge human and natural wealth. All the action is not unfolding only in Asia. We have our own pressure cookers right here and Russia is one of them. At this years summit we had to major two sessions with direct focus on Russia and its role in the region and Europe as a whole. It’s obvious that we need to work with Russia in many different ways and help each other with tearing down the walls that create obstacles for free trade and the exchange of goods and services.

But it is difficult to point fingers when we know that we haven’t managed to solve this issue even within the EU. Let us therefore once and for all ensure free movement for goods and services, and stop building barriers against our neighbours in the EU family. As we have heard in a number of sessions, they believe this is highly unfair and that it creates an elite and a reserve team in the EU. I believe they expected more from us "old" EU members and it will be increasingly difficult to look them in them in the eye with a straight face if we don’t solve this issue now.

I therefore urge the EU member states to find a solution to this problem so that when we meet for the 8th summit next year, we can tick this issue of our list.

We should accept our differences and see our heterogeneity as a regional advantage when we compete in the global market. Our differences are one of our main strengths, and when we stand together we truly can make a difference!

Passion and commitment are the most important tools to make the Baltic Sea Region a winner region in terms of growth, competitiveness and innovation.

The first year of Baltic Sea Initiative 2010 has provided a valuable framework connecting existing networks and developing others in a bottom-up process. The Baltic Development Forum has, in cooperation with VINNOVA, facilitated this important process. This summit clearly indicated that it should be continued.

The already existing networks covering the entire Baltic Sea Region should join forces to increase the competitiveness of the region. We should use the variety of initiatives in a focused manner.

The Baltic Sea Initiative provides a useful common framework – a network of networks.

Five areas have been identified as priority for actions in the coming years.

    * Clusters development
    * Market driven innovation
    * Research cooperation
    * Removal of border barriers focusing on the financial sector
    * Branding the Baltic Sea Region

The results and findings in these action fields will be digested by the Baltic Sea Initiative network into recommendations for governments and other actors in the Baltic Sea Region.

Meanwhile, Baltic Development Forum will continue its efforts to make the Baltic Sea Region even more interesting for businesses to explore, for people to work and live in and in general be a magnet of attraction form all sides. We are firmly committed to our role as a regional platform and facilitator, and want do our part in achieving the goal of our common mission:

    * to build a strong, integrated, and coherent region
    * to make this region’s strengths and qualities known to the world by branding it intelligently
    * to support the Lisbon Strategy with an effective regional monitoring
    * to support the development of network of networks such as the Baltic Sea Initiative,
    * to facilitate and and strengthen the Baltic Sea Region’s position as the "Regional beacon" for the rest of Europe.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, members and partners:

Let me express my sincere thanks to you for joining us in fruitful discussions and sharing your views with us during these three days.

Thank you!