Your Majesties,
Ministers, ambassadors,
Friends,
Your state visit, a long-awaited one by a close friend which we welcome and delight in, is another key milestone in relations between Estonia and Sweden. It is noteworthy that you are paying us this visit in such a special year, marking the 50th anniversary of your coronation.
Your first state visit to Estonia three decades ago, which many still remember very clearly and very fondly, carried special meaning, since your coming here so soon after the restoration of our independence showed that Estonia truly was once again a free nation.
In the intervening years a whole new generation has grown up in our country for whom freedom and the opportunities it presents constitute the normal way of life, as they are lucky enough never to have experienced anything different.
In speaking of the younger generation, thoughts turn naturally to education – something which unites us alongside our history, geography and economies. One of the cornerstones of the education that links us is of course the Academia Gustaviana, the forerunner to the University of Tartu, which was instituted on the orders of King Gustav II Adolf in 1632. But perhaps more importantly, it was under the aegis of the Kingdom of Sweden that the first peasant schools were established in Estonia – an initiative which resulted, among other things, in all Estonians being literate by the end of the 19th century. The seeds of thought of Johannes Rudbeckius fell on fertile soil.
The aim of our present-day cooperation in the field of education is to promote innovation, research and economic relations between Estonia and Sweden. My own recent visit to your country, on which I was accompanied by Estonian entrepreneurs and university rectors, stemmed from the same wish to foster an even closer scientific and economic partnership between us.
As the former rector of two universities myself, I am convinced that the development of international research cooperation is the key to the door of groundbreaking science and leading technology which no one could open on their own. Many of the methods used in contemporary science only become available when countries jointly invest their knowledge and funding in them. This is the only way in which we – each of us individually, and all of us collectively in the Nordic-Baltic region – can boost the competitiveness of our research and economies.
All the prerequisites are in place for us to become pioneers in new ideas and digital innovation, promoting the likes of cross-border e-solutions needed by people and being the most cyber-resilient region in the world.
Much of Estonia’s modern-day economy and finance is based on the Swedish experience, since the economic cooperation we launched after regaining our independence shaped the face of our entrepreneurship. It is the face of responsible and sustainable enterprise. Let us not forget that this July marks 100 years since the signing of the temporary trade agreement between Estonia and Sweden.
I hope that cooperation between the business delegation accompanying you on your visit and their Estonian partners also provides new impetus for our economic relations. Sweden is one of Estonia’s biggest foreign investors and export markets. When things are going well for Sweden, things go well for Estonia, too.
Your Majesties, ladies and gentlemen,
In January 1991, at a rally demanding freedom for the Baltic States at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, the then Swedish foreign minister said that “what matters to the Baltics matters to Sweden”. Now we are in a position to say that what matters to Sweden matters to the Baltics. I am talking about our two countries as soon-to-be allies in NATO. Estonia is doing and will continue to do everything within its power to ensure your accession to the alliance. You deserve it, and our security – the security of Europe – requires it.
During the state visit of the Estonian president to Sweden 12 years ago, a visit in which I was honoured to take part, the view from both the eastern and western shores of the Baltic Sea was that we were living in the most peaceful and secure time the world had ever known. That has all changed. Russia’s imperialism and colonial ambitions and its brutal military aggression against a peaceful, democratic and sovereign Ukraine represent the most serious threat to world peace and global security since the end of the Second World War. In such a situation it is only logical that Sweden should decide to join NATO.
Friends,
Many of our officers and soldiers who served in the early 1990s remember neutral Sweden for the help it provided in supplying Estonia with skis, bicycles, warm uniforms in grey baize and litre-sized tins of pasta with meat for the Defence Forces. Weaponry followed a little later. We can hope that the Swedish and Estonian armed forces will soon be drawing up our defence plans together. The Baltic Sea is becoming NATO’s inland sea, after all.
The best way of ensuring the security of our countries and our people is by working together on every front. Inspired by our integration throughout history and on the close relations we enjoy today, Sweden and Estonia can set an example in such cooperation, as partners in the European Union and, hopefully soon, as allies in NATO, defending, supporting and reinforcing democracy, the principles of the rule of law, freedoms and a world based on international law.
With the same unwavering determination with which Sweden, under Prime Minister Carl Bildt, oversaw the withdrawal of Russian forces from Estonia, we must support Ukraine today in its fight for freedom. Only in so doing can we stop Russia’s imperialist war and its barbaric breaches of international law, and bring those responsible to justice.
We cannot stop caring or allow ourselves to become indifferent to such iniquity, just as your people did not become indifferent to it when they welcomed in Estonians who fled their homeland during the Second World War.
Your Majesties,
It is first and foremost our people who maintain our relations and our closeness.
I recall that almost a century ago, in Stockholm, 29 Swedish statesmen and public figures established the Swedish-Estonian Association, whose first honorary member Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf graciously agreed to become.
Cooperation between Estonia and Sweden today is based just as much on relations between people of this nature, on everyday interest and interaction.
Allow me to raise a toast to the health of Your Majesty and Queen Silvia, and to give, in the Estonian way, three cries of ‘Elagu!’ or ‘Long may it continue’. To the unique tie that binds Estonia and Sweden!
Elagu! Elagu! Elagu!
