After 25 Years of Common EU Membership - Working Together for a Greener European Future OPENING WORDS
After 25 years of Common EU Membership - Working Together for a Greener European Future OPENING WORDS Gunvor Kronman, CEO, Hanaholmen – Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, It’s my great pleasure to wish you all warmly welcome to this seminar celebrating the 25th anniversary of Austrian, Finnish and Swedish EU-membership. Hanaholmen is an institution where normally two countries, Sweden and Finland, are brought together to create added value from co-operation in the fields of culture, society and business. Today, we In the early membership phase, the Lisbon are honoured and delighted to include Strategy set as aim to make the EU the Austria as partner in our programme. most competitive and dynamic knowl- edge-based economy in the world by 2010. We had a genuine challenge, when deter- It was succeeded by the Europe 2020 strat- mining the topic of the seminar, which egy, an agenda for growth and jobs for the included a multitude of candidates, among next decade, emphasizing smart, sustain- others: able and inclusive growth. In December • the future of multilateral 2019, the European Commission presented co-operation the European Green Deal for making the • reflections on EU negoti- EU’s economy sustainable by turning ations and membership climate and environmental challenges into from key EU-profiles opportunities. • the successes and chal- lenges of free mobility The programme is the result of fruitful co-op- • effects on border-regions eration between the Austrian Embassy, from EU-membership the Swedish Embassy, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Institute for It was clear that we wanted to have a strong International Affairs and Hanaholmen – the focus on the future of the EU, so in the end, Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre.
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