Minister Wallin at the Conference on the Northern Dimension and Culture

Dear participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I take great pleasure in my capacity as Minister of Culture and Sport in welcoming you here to jointly take the Kajaani process forward.

After the national election last spring, Finland got a new Government. It is a coalition of four parties: the Prime Minister represents the Centre Party, the Minister of Finance the National Coalition Party, the Minister of the Labour the Greens, and I myself represent the Swedish People's Party. All these ministers are also party leaders.

Before my appointment as Minister, I was State Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment from 2005 to 2007, and then Minister of the Environment for three and a half months. I was very pleased to get the culture and sport portfolio in this new Government. You see, I think that culture and sport are sectors of the future and I want to heighten their relative weight in Finnish welfare society.

Today's theme touches upon the foreign policy section in the Finnish Government Programme. We want to promote Nordic cooperation and the work of the Regional Councils. With Russia we shall develop bilateral cooperation and advance EU-Russia cooperation. In perusing the Programme of the new Swedish Government, I detected similar weightings in their foreign policy.

When the Finnish foreign policy aims were formulated, I doubt that the primary consideration was culture or its potential for promoting these aims. Major policy lines generally leave culture in the margin, as an embellishment, as it were, or as an emblem of a civilised society. Its contribution in enhancing welfare and tolerance or boosting innovation potential or economic development does not usually come into the equation.

In foreign policy, culture and art are often seen as elements polishing the external image of a nation state. In a globalised world of rapid and wide communication, such image-polishing no longer works. The arts and culture live on their own terms. The public find their cultural and art experiences according to their own preferences, not on the terms of national promotion measures. It is quite another matter that high-quality culture and citizens' activity in cultural pursuits give a positive picture of a country.

Art and culture have their own intrinsic value as a channel for creativity. This is why all civilisations seek to create favourable conditions for artistic creation by supporting artists, art institutions and art education. Owing to such core investment, art supply is abundant and of a high level in our country. In this new millennium, we can note that our investment in culture and education gives value for money. There is a new kind of demand for artistic creativity. The post-industrial market economy, which serves increasingly sophisticated demand, needs endless quantities of content products: music, books, plays, films, games, mobile contents, dance events, cultural travel. Creative industries have demand and growing markets.

For people living in a post-industrial society, the significance of art and culture is self-evident. Art industries are recognised to have a role as one of the engines of creative economy. This is a natural juncture for making culture an active component of the Northern Dimension policy, which up to now has primarily focused on environmental and economic values.

In its EU policy section, our Government Programme records an aim to develop the Northern Dimension. What do these policy lines mean in terms of culture? Not necessarily anything if those working within arts and culture see no implications in it for them. No one is asking the cultural actors to work for Nordic cooperation, for EU-Russia cooperation, for Northern Dimension partnership. They must find their own voice in these forums. Policy lines open up opportunities for active people who live in their time.

One excursion by culture into foreign affairs was the launch of EU-Russia cultural relations. In late June, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Aleksandr Sokolov, the Russian Minister of Culture and Mass Communications. We were able to note that the construction of cultural cooperation between the EU and Russia began gained full momentum after the Kajaani expert meeting on EU-Russia cultural cooperation in 2006. A working group jointly led by Russia and the European Commission is preparing the first cooperation action plan in culture, and the first Permanent Partnership Council on Culture will convene on the invitation of the Portuguese Presidency on 25 October. This has made culture an important player in external relations policy between the EU and Russia. I don't think anybody could foresee this before the EU-Russia Summit in St Petersburg four years ago, where the Four Common Spaces were adopted.

Your important task here is to formulate proposals for an action plan of EU-Russia cultural cooperation. Your proposals will provide basic material for the first EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council on Culture. The proposals for the Council will be prepared by a joint working group. This group is led by the Presidency, the Commission and Russia and is open to all interested Member States. I would consider it expedient for all the EU countries interested in this cooperation to send a representative to the Working Group, because it is a direct channel of influence.

Finland has officially been a member of the Nordic family since the 1950s, but culturally we have always belonged there. We share the same values, which have evolved over centuries and which emphasise individual self-determination (we never had serfdom here in the Nordic countries), folk education across the board and cultural life based on national culture, parliamentarianism, democracy, equality and tolerance.

We are strongly aware of all this in Finland, especially now that we are preparing the anniversary of the events that took place in 1808 and 1809. Finland's road to one of the most democratic states in the world did not start when the city of rulers changed from Stockholm to St Petersburg, as we are sometimes led to believe. On the contrary, the Western culture and legislation that had taken root in Finland over centuries were the reason why Russia saw it appropriate to grant extensive autonomy to its new Grand Duchy. The Russian law scholar Boris Nolde noted in the early 1900s that Russia annexed —"without closer customs inspection"— nations and regions which carried their whole cultural and legal heritage in their luggage.

Although the Russian rule was not as long as the Swedish rule, it guaranteed that Finland as a state is —to use a modern expression— a concrete manifestation of the Northern Dimension. Having said that, the cultural and judicial roots are clearly Nordic for historical reasons. Prize-winning historian Max Engman has aptly said that the Skåne people in the southernmost part of Sweden will have to wait until 2330 before they can say they have been Swedes as long as Finns were.

This is a heritage we Finns should remember and strengthen. But at the same time we must look to the future and consolidate cultural cooperation with Russia. As I said, this is a strategy that comes naturally to us.

Nordic cooperation is a self-evident fact for us in all sectors, especially in culture. Over decades the Nordic countries have created effective art and culture networks, a cooperation culture.

This year Finland holds the chairmanship of the Nordic Council of Ministers. In terms of culture this means that I chair the Council of Ministers responsible for culture, which is composed of the ministers of culture of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Correspondingly all committees of senior officials have a Finnish chair for the year. This is the same practice as in the EU.

The Finnish Chairmanship Programme includes this seminar, which was jointly agreed upon by the Nordic countries. In Nordic cooperation we have sought synergy from EU cooperation for years. In 2006 the Nordic countries also adopted a joint Russia strategy and outlined cooperation with Northwestern Russia for the period 2006-2008. A Nordic-Russian action programme for cultural cooperation is under preparation, and the Council of Ministers of Culture convening in October will decide on its content.

Your other concrete task is to contribute to the content of the co-Nordic Russia programme in culture, which has already been discussed at the St Petersburg meeting last spring.

The Northern Dimension is part of the EU's external relations policy. Further, Northern Dimension policy is also — and above all— joint EU, Russian, Norwegian and Icelandic policy. The new framework document and the political declaration relating to it were adopted last autumn at the Northern Dimension Summit in Helsinki.

This Summit, the first of its kind, convened all the heads of state concerned: President Putin from Russia, Prime Minister Stoltenberg from Norway, Prime Minister Haarde from Iceland; European Commission President Barroso, and both President Halonen and Prime Minister Vanhanen from the EU Presidency. Geographically the Northern Dimension covers an area from Iceland in the west to the Ural mountains in the east, from the Arctic Sea in the north to the northern coast of the Baltic Sea in the south.

The Northern Dimension area has several regional councils: the Arctic Council; the Barents Euro-Arctic Council; the Council of the Baltic Sea States; as well as the Nordic Council of Ministers, all of which have a cultural dimension in their operations.

The agreed content of the Northern Dimension policy is the Four Common Spaces adopted for the implementation of the EU-Russia Strategic Partnership. As we all know, the fourth of these comprises research, education and culture.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our two-day conference has a very concrete aim: to prepare content for EU-Russia cooperation on culture. And since the invited participants come from the area covered by the regional councils and networks of the north, it is natural that your proposals focus on cooperation within the Northern Dimension area. Despite its large size, the northern area is not alone in the world and therefore it is only proper that we are joined by representatives of pan-European cultural networks, who can explore ways suitable for them to cooperate with cultural actors in the northern areas.

Personally I value Nordic cooperation very highly. I am a Swedish-speaking Finn, which means that Swedish is my mother tongue. I have set it my goal to promote Nordic cooperation to the best of my ability.

In the Northern Dimension context, I see that the networks created and experience gained within Nordic cooperation will stand in a good stead. Now is the time to seize the opportunity which is offered practically on a platter by the Northern Dimension document and EU-Russia cooperation. Cultural actors in the north from Northwestern Russia to Iceland can, if they so wish, develop Northern Dimension Partnership in culture, which would help raise culture alongside other sectors in the implementation of the Strategic Partnership. Prospects, which are also economically challenging, open up from content production in general and, for example, the commercialisation of our cultures for tourism purposes.

My tasks at the Ministry of the Environment convinced me of the feasibility of the Northern Dimension partnership as a cooperation structure. This is why I would like you to explore ways to apply the experience gained in the environment sector to the cultural sector. The Northern Dimension partnership in the social and health sector is different in structure. Overall, the partnerships can be moulded to suit each sector, drawing on experiences gained in other sectors, as well as developing their own features. In creating a cultural partnership we have our work cut out for us. It takes a shared will and capacity to work according to it. Culture is not given the same weight by all policy-makers as we do here. But I'm sure history will prove that culture is one of the engines for development in the new millennium.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Kajaani process has proved its effectiveness in speeding up EU-Russia cultural cooperation. It will be interesting to see if this second Kajaani meeting will do the same, if it will produce as feasible models for promoting the Northern Dimension cultural partnership as the previous Kajaani meeting for EU-Russia cooperation in culture. To promote this prospect, I would like to remind the conference the task ahead. I will be looking forward to the results of our conference. If you come to the conclusion that a Northern Dimension partnership is needed in culture and find modes for its implementation, I am ready to promote the matter.

As the chair of the Nordic Council of Ministers responsible for culture, I will take the matter up, if needed, and the present EU Presidency Portugal can, if it so wishes, make use of the material and communicate the results to the ministers responsible for culture convening as the European Council. And I shall naturally continue my discussions with my colleague Sokolov on follow-up action.

The ball is now on your side of the court. In the spirit of the Kajaani process, your views will directly influence decision-making. Looking forward to your results, I wish you success and joy in your work.