Norway has a strong belief in the future, a belief that few other countries can match: Last year almost 60 000 babies were born in Norway. Few things show a greater belief in the future than this.

I would like to congratulate all of you who became parents in this past year, and especially those of you who became mothers. In almost no other western country do women give birth to more babies than in Norway. And there is almost no other country where women have such a high standard of education and such a high rate of participation in working life than in Norway.

I know that combining work, family life and children is often very demanding. It is especially demanding for women, who still do most of the work in the home. Gender equality has still not come far enough.

All the same, Norwegian women are themselves choosing to have more children. They are themselves choosing more education and participation in working life. This combination is unique. And it also says something about the quality of our society.

If we are to maintain this belief in the future, there are two values in particular that I feel are important and that I shall talk about tonight:

-the value of creating

-and the value of sharing.

These two values must be closely linked. But we often find that we tend to separate them, that we are either interested only in producing more in order to become even richer or that we think welfare will always be there, and that all we need to do is to divide a cake that gets bigger by itself.

Let me begin with the ability to create.

History shows us the example of Spain, waxing prosperous on the gold from its colonies in Latin America. But when the country became rich the Spaniards rested on their laurels and turned their attention inwards. It was the beginning of a long recession. They stopped creating new products, new culture and new art. It was to take several hundred years before they recovered.

If we are to avoid making the same mistake as the Spaniards, we must continue to create new values after the oil age has reached its peak. Not only economic values, but values that will give us safer, richer lives.

And it is today that we must lay the foundation for this.

We are an old nation, but a young state. Let us keep our youthfulness as we approach the hundredth anniversary of our independence in 2005. Let us continue to dare to explore new paths, to think new thoughts, to break new ground, to create new art, new literature, new architecture and new music.

We must not rest on our laurels. We must look forward. We must continue to be aware that it is knowledge and work that provide the foundation for welfare.

We must encourage innovation and enterprise. Let us welcome all who develop new enterprises in traditional or new industries. People with new ideas are often met with scepticism. But without new ideas we will get nowhere. We need all those who create something new by their own efforts.

We must put a value on knowledge. And we must be especially appreciative of the value of those who communicate knowledge and of the places where knowledge is generated. Schools and universities, but also companies and workplaces. We must continue to learn throughout our lives. Anyone who thinks they have finished their education is finished but not educated.

New technology creates new opportunities. We are already using information technology. Now we must use wisdom in developing biotechnology for the benefit of society. We must ensure that all new technology is applied within a framework that is ethically sound. But we must also make use of the opportunities that present themselves, for example for the treatment of diseases, for business development and in the workplace.

Albert Einstein, himself a man with vast knowledge, said that imagination is more important than knowledge. He meant that we need imagination in order to benefit from knowledge. Children have imagination. Our schools must cultivate imagination, so that we retain the ability to think innovatively.

When we have created we must not lose our ability to share.

What gives our lives most meaning and is our greatest source of happiness is sharing with others. Many of us have experienced this happiness at Christmas. But many of us have also experienced Christmas as a time when the darkness is even darker and our sense of loss is even greater.

Earlier this autumn I met an elderly lady who talked about her loneliness. She was making an important point. The worst thing about loneliness is not the lack of attention from other people. It is the lack of other people to pay attention to.

The question of what we should live for is just as important as the question of what we should live on. Even though Norway and most of us who live here have become richer, we have not necessarily become happier. Since 1970 we have become almost three times as rich in terms of money. But have we become three times as happy? Do we live rich lives in this country?

Ole Paus has said of us Norwegians: "We have everything, but that is all we have."

Many of our dreams end up as calculations in pounds and pence. But deep down inside, I know that as a human being, as a husband, as a father and as a friend, the good life is about something else: It is about having people close to me who I can share my joys and my sorrows with. It is about being part of a wider fellowship and knowing that my contribution is important.

Compared with the situation in other countries, differences in people's standard of living in Norway are small. But we must not confuse equitable distribution and equal opportunities with everyone being the same. In our diverse and multicultural society we want people to be different. They must be allowed to be themselves, independent of gender, nationality, belief or sexual orientation.

But we must take a stand against differences that are due to social injustice, against differences that are inherited. The challenge for us is to prevent wealth from creating new inequalities and access to information from creating new social divisions.

There are far too many examples of situations where those who already have most do not take their fair share of our joint responsibility. Large bonuses and gilt-edged contracts rock the foundations of a fine and unwritten understanding that we have a joint responsibility for society as a whole. They rock the foundations of our fellowship.

All of us can find ourselves in a weak position, even the strongest of us.

Just before Christmas I visited the Salvation Army in Oslo. It made a strong impression on me to meet people who are in need in today's rich Norway. I am thinking for example of poor children, children whose parents do not have enough money to take care of themselves and their families, and cannot afford to allow their children to go on school trips or go to birthday parties.

But it also made a strong impression on me to experience the humanity, warmth and compassion which Major Marit Solli and her colleagues show to all those who need a helping hand. The thousands of voluntary workers in our country deserve our thanks. They show what loving one’s neighbour and the joy of sharing really mean.

The most important thing that we share is our common natural environment. The only way to solve environmental problems is for we who are living here today to share our wealth with those who will be living here tomorrow.

We have been experiencing some extraordinary weather recently. In the south and east there has been hardly any sun, interminable rain, floods and record rainfall. There has been drought in the west and the north. In Sunndalsøra the temperature was 18°C in December and people were picking roses in the middle of Advent.

One unusual winter is not evidence of climate change. But changes over time indicate that we must take the situation seriously. The breakdown of the climate negotiations in The Hague was a serious setback. But this shows just how difficult it is for the different countries of the world to agree on sharing the burdens.

I am confident that it will be possible to come to an agreement and we are doing all we possibly can to contribute to this. Meeting the challenges posed by climate requires an effort from all of us - the community, businesses and individuals. But this is the only way forward.

During the whole of the previous century, the utilization of hydropower was a sign of the growth of Norwegian industry. We have developed a good deal of hydropower in Norway. And we will maintain it and take care of it.

But we have reached a limit. The Government therefore proposes not to implement the planned development of the watercourses in Bjøllåga, Melfjord and Beiarn.

I know that this decision is controversial. But the benefits of these development projects are not great enough to justify the irreversible effects of interfering with nature. An untouched natural landscape is becoming more and more valuable. The era of developing new, large hydropower plants in Norway is over.

We do not need to be ashamed of being one of the richest countries in the world. But this entails commitments. Gro Harlem Brundtland used to say: More than NOK 99 in every 100 which the country earns is spent on ourselves. Is it not reasonable that we share the last krone with some of the others?

I believe that the answer must be yes.

Just before Christmas I received a letter from Kjersti Gjestvang, secretary general of the Norwegian branch of UNICEF, asking me to put in a word for poor children in my New Year’s speech. I am very happy to do this. Together with UNICEF, Norway is now actively participating in an international project to vaccinate all the children in the world. The right to have one’s children vaccinated is a right which Norwegian parents take for granted. But it is a right which 30 million children in the world do not have. Three million of these children will die of diseases which our children are protected against.

After only one year, the international vaccination programme has helped to save the lives of thousands of children. Our own history has shown that infant mortality must be reduced before growth and development can take place in a country. We are now helping to start many other countries off in this direction.

It is in the years to come that we shall see the results of the collapse of the Berlin wall. The divide between eastern and western Europe is gradually being eliminated. We now see that the responsibility for the future is a responsibility which all countries must share. We are in the process of achieving a single Europe. And Europe’s future is Norway's future. Europe's lack of security is Norway's lack of security. Europe's peace is Norway’s peace.

If we are to secure peace, we must take responsibility. This also means sharing - sharing responsibility. From today, Norway is a member of the United Nations Security Council. This is a great responsibility. In April, a Norwegian general will be taking over command of the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo. More than one thousand Norwegian men and women are helping to keep peace in the Balkans. I visited them just before Christmas. I am proud to be prime minister of a country which has such fine officers and soldiers.

A brand new year lies before us.

On 25 August we will celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Haakon and his fiancée, Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby. Last autumn they made an important decision: to spend their lives together. They had made up their minds to be guided by love. This is how it should be, and royalty is no exception.

We send greetings to King Harald, Queen Sonja and their family and thank them for all they have done for Norway during the last year.

We also send greetings to all the Norwegians who are working abroad, in the peacekeeping forces of the UN and NATO, for companies, in the foreign service, in development assistance, in humanitarian efforts and in the work of the church.

On an evening such as this, we particularly send our warmest thoughts to those who are suffering from illness or those who have lost someone dear to them.

And now we will underline the basic fellowship between all of us when we wish each other a Happy New Year.