Speech by President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at the National Library of Estonia on 9 September 2003

With globalization the world economy has received entirely new features. Products and capital move with lightning speed from one country to another, thanks to modern technology. The borders of nation-states are becoming lower. People, for whom the role of worker and consumer is not enough, are searching for their place. People do no live only for themselves but also through their community. Culture enriches both the individual and the community.

For a long time the nation-state was based on culture. A nation with only one language and one culture is a rarity today. Cultural diversity is a rapidly expanding phenomenon. It requires the simultaneous control of many factors. Cultural diversity is a richness if the bed it grows in is democracy and respect for human rights.

Finnish and Estonian are small languages by European standards. As internationalization proceeds, representatives of small languages and cultures are concerned about their fate. But any language and culture develops especially through interaction with others.

Today as well our language bears traces of our history and cultural relations with other nations. Both Finnish and Estonian include plenty of loan words from European languages. These are a living reminder that both countries have always been part of Europe. Sometimes interaction has been quite intense. When our continent has gone through hard times, our links to Europe have also suffered.

European integration has lowered barriers and tightened connections. Travel is easier than before. New media are challenging old ways of producing and consuming culture. This is mainly a good thing for national culture.

When Finns in 1994 were considering whether to join the European Union, many felt unsure and concerned that the vitality and strong originality of our cultural life, of which we have been proud, could suffer or languish as a result of Union membership. The message also reached our membership negotiators. The memoranda to Finland's accession treaty emphasized that only membership of the European Union would allow Finland to participate fully in the Union's cultural programmes, which was considered an important objective.

The Government underlined that membership would also open opportunities for Finland's regions to receive structural funds for cultural projects.

Membership of the European Union did not result in obligations to change cultural policy in Finland, since the Union is not striving to harmonize cultural legislation in its member states. It does not have authority to do so under its present treaty or under the draft Constitution proposed by the Convention. Cultural policy, grants, state aids and other cultural legislation will remain firmly in the member states' own hands, as a matter for national decision-making. In this respect the principle of subsidiarity is strictly applied: decisions should be made at the level where they affect people and where they are best known.

The Union's task is to increase cooperation between the member states and in this way to produce European value added. At the beginning of the draft Constitution, respecting cultural and linguistic diversity is gratifyingly emphasized as one of the Union's objectives. This objective is even more important in a Union of 25 member states.

Finland's cultural concerns and doubts concerning EU membership were thus unnecessary. Development has been in the opposite direction. Finland's cultural life today is varied, lively and on a solid professional base. Its popular and democratic nature has been preserved. It is based in the Nordic way on large numbers of people who are interested in culture and art and on their organizations as part of civic society.

We also share this valuable feature with Estonians. Your tradition of group singing and song festivals is an eloquent demonstration of the significance of culture as the interpreter of national identity and the promoter of solidarity in difficult times.

The internal market which opens with Union membership improves artists' and other cultural professionals' possibilities to operate across borders. In the internal market even a small country's artists can more easily reach a broad audience and enter a more open and diversified job market. Those who have succeeded best in this appear to be young artists, in whose work and life internationalism is an everyday fact.

The present enlargement of the Union is viewed quite favourably in Finland, and this includes culture as well. We believe that with enlargement cultural cooperation within the European Union can become even more varied and lively. The borders of the European Union are approaching in one bound the borders of Europe's historical cultural area. Our continent can once again "breathe with both lungs", to borrow a phrase from Pope John Paul. Enlargement will also strengthen Europe's cultural position and clout on the global level.

We hope that Finland's cultural life will within the framework of the enlarged Union be offered increasing cooperation possibilities with neighbouring countries and regions. The Baltic Sea region is becoming in practice an internal sea for the European Union - its northern Mare Nostrum.

We will be especially happy if enlargement brings into the Union Hungary and Estonia, whose languages are related to ours. We have strong traditions of cultural and linguistic cooperation with both of these. Hopefully we can foster this cooperation in the coming years within the Union and with its support - for our own benefit and also as a valuable part of promoting European linguistic and cultural diversity.