Personal representatives of the Prime Ministers in the Baltic Sea Region,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

To all of you – a warm welcome to Oslo.

It is great honour for Norway to chair this task force on Communicable disease control in the Baltic sea Region. I am pleased that my 11 colleagues in the region have responded to my invitation and sent their personal representatives to this first meeting of the Task Force.

On your agenda is the fight against disease.

But let me start somewhere else – at the heart of politics and the process of integration in our region.

The meeting of heads of government in the Baltic Sea region that initiated the work of the Task Force was the third of its kind since 1996. That in itself is an event.

What we are seeing is the rapidly getting together of states that were cut off from each other for far too many decades. Gradually we are transforming the Baltic Sea region into what it really is; a powerful European centre for growth and human progress.

The agenda that is emerging is putting people at its core.

Economic growth, jobs and welfare.

Protection of the environment.

Human security and the fight against crime.

This is all needed. Because if our region is to flourish, we need to put people first.

It is when people travel, trade, exchange ideas and link up that economies develop. That confidence is being built. That peace is being secured.

We have had it this way in the Nordic region for more than 50 years. We have travelled without passports. We have had access to each others labour markets – long before the European Union even had the idea.

It has made the Nordic countries into a closely knit family. And at the core of this family are close people-to-people relations.

Now - gradually - all of this is coming to the Baltic sea region. That is at least the ambition which we once more stated at Kolding in Denmark in April.

In this perspective we put health on the agenda of the Kolding meeting.

The reason is very simple: On the one hand we see that the spread of disease is not a fact belonging to the history books. It is happening right here – in our region.

Three areas of disease give particular reason for concern:

The spread of HIV.

The spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

And the spread of multi-resistant tuberculosis.

On the other hand we know that few obstacles are stronger to people-to-people cooperation and integration than the fear of disease.

So we decided to do something about it.

The initial draft statement from the Kolding meeting mentioned the fight against disease. Norway, supported by a number of countries, argued that we should be very concrete and start work to agree on a plan to control the spread of communicable diseases in the region.

We decided to place health where it really belongs – at the core of the political agenda. My fellow Prime Ministers agreed to get personally engaged.

That is why you are here today.

State secretary Lars Erik Flatø is my personal representative, reporting directly to me and staying closely in touch with my office.

Ambassador Harald Siem will be leading the secretariat of the task force.

Your agenda today sets the course of your work. It speaks for itself.

Let me share with you just a few reflections as you start your work.

First; fighting disease is no mystery.

What we learn from national and international health experts is that all of these diseases can be effectively fought.

We will need to keep working for new vaccines – especially against HIV and tuberculosis. But short of vaccines we are not powerless. By collaborating very effectively on agreed strategies we can make a real difference.

Second; we need to be innovative.

The old quarantine regime, implying detailed health controls at the borders, is both ineffective and counterproductive.

Ineffective because controls of selected population groups will have limited effect. Counterproductive because what we are after is not punishment but a culture of cooperation – between people and their government and health authorities.

Effective strategies against diseases in modern societies require coordinated and consistent efforts in all countries concerned. This is inter-dependence in practice.

Third; disease is not a simple physical condition of ill-health. HIV and tuberculosis are social diseases where some segments of the population are worse off than others.

Public health action touches the very core fabric of society. We are learning that dignity and respect for the individual person is a precondition for success.

And fourth; what you start here today has implications far beyond health.

It adds a new chapter to an emerging culture of cooperation in the Baltic Sea region – and it sends signals to other regions in Europe and beyond.

I urge you to look for all possible synergies. With other international organisations such as the European Union and the World Health Organization. With other parts of society such as the research community. And not least, synergies among national health authorities - public, private and civil - in our 11 countries.

There is so much we can learn from each other – so much we can do together.

Norway will lend all its support to your work.

I look forward to receiving your recommendations at the end of the year – and to take your work forward with my fellow prime ministers in the region.

Good luck.