Dear friends,

We have come to the end of our conference, after two days of interesting and important discussions, and social events that have brought us together. And that is one of the goals of these conferences, to establish personal contacts across national borders.

Our political discussions, our professional lectures, the presentations and reports we have heard, all nourished our thoughts and gave impetus to our future work. We have adopted a final declaration with clear statements for the future direction of our co-operation. From a political point of view, the conference brought our co-operation a great step forward, to the benefit of our mutual efforts and to the advancement of our national cultures.

The key-word for our conference was co-operation. The times when we could live as isolated islands and work as if we were alone in the world are gone. We can all learn from each other, and we all have something to give to each other. We have a common heritage we need to preserve, we have a common cultural platform we want to develop, we have common values we want to defend. Together we find that national questions are of mutual interest and can best be solved when we work together.

That is what international co-operation is all about.

The Baltic Sea region is a region in which we all feel at home - because it means something to us. History, trade, culture and personal relationships have given content to the concept. Our meetings, and not least, the various projects initiated by cultural institutions, artists and cultural administrators have done a great deal in order to make The Baltic Sea region a meaningful term. We should all be pleased by this fact.

Let me at the end of the conference express my deepest thanks to all of you who came to Bergen and to this conference. Your contributions, your thoughts, your ideas, your considerations, have all been most valuable and have nourished our future thoughts. You have all contributed to make our conference a success, and I am most grateful.

I wish you all the best in your future work. May you all have a pleasant journey back to your home country and hopefully with good memories of your days here on the west coast of Norway.

I then declare The Seventh Conference of Ministers of Culture of the Baltic Sea States closed.