Mrs. President.
Mr. Pentti Arajärvi.
Your Excellencies.
Ladies and Gentlemen.

This dinner today is filled with Estonian-Finnish feelings. The habitual and new are interwoven here. I greet the President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen on her state visit to the Republic of Estonia with due solemnity and cordiality. We are able to appreciate this symbol that you chose the Southern shore of the Baltic Sea as the destination of your second state visit. With the same cordiality and warmth, I would like to say: Welcome back to Estonia, dear Tarja. Your meetings here are characterised by continuity: the relationships between us as well as our relationships with the world have always been on you desk and a subject of our negotiations. So we continue the co-operation that began a long time ago, but now we continue it as heads of state.

The matters of Finland have always been also the matters of Estonia. After Estonia regained its independence, the people here have followed everything that happens by our neighbours in the North with special attention and friendly support. Finland is no longer the distant world from which we were cut off by occupation. It is no longer the state from which we tried to find hope and learn only through the dumb fisheye of television. Solidarity with Finland is no longer a nostalgic dream of Finno-Ugric scientists, but a need of Europe. This is the feeling with which people in Estonia followed the recent presidential elections in Finland, their democratic openness and Nordic restraint. It was not curiosity, it was learning, so that we could get rid of the post-soviet trash and be able to understand the possibilities and needs of a democratic state sooner.

In the seventies and eighties, Finland transmitted to Estonian television viewers and the few people who managed to cross the gulf the dream of what Estonia could have been like without occupation and annexation. Now, at the threshold of the millennium, we can speak about mutually advantageous relationships, which naturally do not lack the driving force of competition. Mutual respect brings mutual benefits. We can be satisfied with the economic relationships of our countries.

Our cultural contacts reach back through several centuries. Finland holds an important place in the lives of Lydia Koidula, Gustav Suits, Friedebert Tuglas, Villem Ridala, Oskar Kallas, Ilmar Talv and several other great figures in Estonian culture. And the other way round: the ''Bridge of Finland'' is a two-way cultural road - let us recall Finnish names from Aino Kallas to Matti Haavio, who received his pen name Mustanpää from this very house, to Jaakko Kaurinkoski. I would like to praise the work done by the Finnish Institute in Estonia - it shows how to actually create and secure the Bridge of Finland that has been so often discussed. News of cultural life in Finland, profound discussions of modern political and ethical problems and even something as practical as problems related to vocational education and several other enterprises bring hundreds of Estonians who are interested in Finland to the Institute.

Mrs. President, your state visit gives us another possibility to compare our attitudes and opinions in issues of world politics. As we step into the 21st century, we take several unsolved things with us from the previous century. It is a pity that the expansion of Europe still meets people who like the status quo, for whom the Europe brutally divided by the Cold War seemed final. I am convinced that European Union needs new members as much as the new members need the European Union. This is the only way Europe can reach the stability that has been only imaginary and selective after the wars of the 20th century.

Finland, who is probably the member of the European Union who understands the moods of the candidates in the most sensitive manner, has already played an important role in designing the joining process. Estonia would like to express its deep gratitude to Finland for this. I hope that the determination of will continue. We feel the support of Finland. I assure you that Estonia is behind you in order to stand next to Finland in the future.

Mrs. President, even though one of our states is big and the other one smaller, like a song by Eno Raud says, we are both small states on the map of the world. This offers its own opportunities, and Estonia has to take advantage of them. Smallness means the obligation and the possibility to be particularly dynamic. I believe that Estonia has proven it in the last ten years. For the voice of a small state to sound, and to sound loud, its politics have to be particularly ethical. At the same time, small states form the actual majority in the world. The high international authority of Finland is an excellent example of the international opportunities of a small state.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasise that our nations know how to keep their history and find security about future in the past. When we consider Finland, then this is not an encyclopaedic truth for me, but an experience of Finland that I have felt myself.

You, Mrs. President, dear Tarja and Pentti, also know a lot about Estonia and I am happy that you have your own place here that you can always return to, you own room whose window opens to our common gulf, the axis of our life in the south.

Please allow me to wish you, dear President and Pentti on behalf of the Republic of Estonia, everyone present, Helle and myself, fortune and success in your work that you do for the Republic of Finland.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Let us raise our glasses to our guests.

To the fortune and prosperity of Finland.

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