(Translation)

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND
TO THE SENATE OF SPAIN ON 2.2.1999

I thank you for your kind and appreciative observations on my country. Finnish and Spanish parliamentarians have an old tradition of cooperation and what you have just said showed convincingly how close and rich in diversity relations between our countries have become.

Europe has changed markedly in recent decades. The Cold War era is over and cooperation and integration have gained strength. The changes have not been painless everywhere, but the trend of development has been positive overall.

Every country in today’s Europe is making decisions through which it is adjusting to the new circumstances. Finland joined the European Union four years ago, in January 1995. We are also determined participants in the NATO Partnership for Peace, working actively in the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, preparing to join the Schengen arrangement and were among the eleven countries that at the beginning of the year adopted the euro.

All of this is bringing closer relations between my country and Spain, whose positive attitude to Europe and constructive approach to cooperation we have learned to appreciate.

The 20^th anniversary of the Constitution was recently celebrated in Spain. Coincidentally, your Constitution Day, 6 December, is also our Independence Day. Spain’s political transition to constitutional democracy has been carried through in an exemplary manner. Your country has flourished also in the economic sense during that period. Trade between Finland and Spain has enjoyed record growth in recent years, but I understand that there is still room for further growth and diversification. I can tell you that tomorrow, together with a delegation of senior representatives of Finnish companies, I shall be attending a business leaders’ meeting hosted by CEOE, the Confederation of Spanish Industry and Employers, to discuss precisely these questions.

We in Finland are marking the 80^th anniversary of our Constitution this year. It is presently being revised and in this conjunction the changes that our membership of the European Union have caused in our political system, which has remained stable for a long time, will be taken into account.

Our democratic traditions are much older than even our Constitution. Beginning as early as 1362 Finnish representatives were among the electors of the Swedish King, of whose realm our country was then the eastern part. Finns sat in Sweden’s Riksdag from 1809 to 1917, when Finland was a grand duchy under the Czar of Russia, we had political autonomy and our own legislative assembly, the Diet. In 1906, eleven years before we attained independence, a radical parliamentary reform was carried through in Finland. We went directly from a Diet composed of several estates to a unicameral Parliament elected directly by the people on an equal and universal franchise. In this conjunction, Finnish women became the first in the world to obtain full political rights. Indeed, gender equality is an essential feature of our democracy. At the moment, 67 of the 200 deputies in our Parliament are women. Also Speaker of Parliament is a woman.

A clear majority of the Finns voted in a referendum to join the European Union. Opinion polls indicate that if the same referendum were to be held today, the result would be largely the same. A referendum on accession was also arranged in the Åland Islands, which have had a precisely-defined autonomous status since 1920. The people of Åland decided to join the Union. Thus we can note that continent-wide integration is possible whilst still preserving traditions of self-government.

As you know, Finland supports enlargement of the European Union. In our view, it is important that applicant countries be supported to enable them to be ready for accession soon. Membership on the part of the three Baltic States will have the effect of making the entire Baltic Sea region stronger and more united. Already now, all of the northern European countries are participating, on different levels and in varying compositions, in multilateral cooperation. The European Union is paying attention to its Northern Dimension for largely the same reasons that it pursues an effective Mediterranean policy. In Finland’s view, both dimensions are important and complementary. Here, too, Finland and Spain have shared interests to attend to.

I am confident that the excellent relations between our countries, and in which parliamentarians play an essential role, can be further deepened and that there is a willingness to do so.

I wish you success in your work.