Address by President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen at the 10th anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in Barcelona on 27-28 November 2005

It is a special pleasure to attend this festive Anniversary Summit of the Barcelona Process as I remember well the launch of the Process in this beautiful city in 1995. I attended that meeting in the capacity of Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.

During the past ten years the Barcelona Process has served as a forum for open dialogue and increasingly intensive cooperation. It has offered us an opportunity to jointly tackle problems in the region and seek solutions to them. We have created a wide network of contacts, which today covers nearly all sectors of human activity.

I do hope that we could reach a consensus on the Code of Conduct on Countering Terrorism. Finland firmly supports increasing cooperation between the authorities responsible for justice and home affairs. Strengthening security and understanding requires broad cooperation. With this in mind I greatly appreciate the recently established Anna Lindh Foundation. Its task of promoting cooperation, dialogue and understanding between cultures is really important. I am glad that the Barcelona Process also includes cooperation among parliamentarians and civil society.

Economic growth has been uneven and has not been sufficiently strong to alleviate social problems, create enough jobs and offer hope and future prospects to young people in all parts of the Mediterranean region. In this respect, our challenges are now at least as demanding as they were ten years ago. In addition, various new threats have emerged that also reflect that we are not able to govern globalisation and its side effects. As many of the participants at this summit have themselves experienced, radicalism and violence have increased.

In domestic development and reform processes, priority should be given to qualitative changes that aim at democracy, respect for human rights and the promotion of the rule of law and good governance. In addition, I want to emphasise that welfare, social equality and economic success are interdependent and mutually reinforcing factors. I can say this from experience, since in a number of recent international surveys Finland, as the other Nordic countries, all based on the Nordic welfare state model, have been assessed to be most competitive and technically developed countries in the world.

In particular, I would like to emphasise the importance of the position of women and girls. Ensuring full rights of women is socially just and economically wise. In today’s increasingly technical economies, with their stress on competence, women offer a vital potential. That is why we must focus on training and education of women and girls.

Illegal and uncontrolled migration – which affects also the Mediterranean region – has been a topic of active discussion recently. Global cooperation in particular within the framework of the UN and regional cooperation for example between the EU and its Mediterranean partners are required to deal with this phenomenon. We must find ways to govern cross border movement of people and see to whole picture, including the countries of origin, receiving countries and people themselves.

The Barcelona Process is an important form of cooperation for Finns. We ourselves live on the shores of the Baltic, which like the Mediterranean is an inland sea bordering several countries – both EU Member States and non Member States. I believe that the experience gained in protecting the Baltic Sea will be useful in cooperation between the EU and its Mediterranean partners, and vice versa. In 1997 Finland hosted the first meeting of the Ministers of the Environment in the Barcelona Process. I am particularly happy that environmental issues are covered so extensively and emphatically in this cooperation.

Environmental cooperation will be one of the key issues during Finland's six-month chairmanship of the Barcelona Process next year. Finland will also organise the next Foreign Ministerial Meeting that will be convened in the framework of the Process in 2006. Thanking warmly Spain and the UK for this Summit; we promise to do our utmost for the success of the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in 2006.