It was an honour to have Hon Todd McClay, Minister of Trade and Investment, host our Europe Day reception in Parliament this evening. Our FTA celebrates its first anniversary in May. Our trade and investment embodies our relationship: secure, stable, with long-standing strengths and dynamic innovation for the benefit of our people, prosperity and planet.

We joined with more than 300 guests – Ministers, MPs, Team Europe, exporters, innovators, academics, media and diplomatic corps – to celebrate Europe. Even as the world changes, we stay true. The European Union is a peace and prosperity project and this genesis continues to drive us.

With New Zealand, we are solutions-focused partners: through our FTA, we build our prosperity; Horizon Europe sees bright ideas to knotty problems turn from concepts to commercialisation; we seek security and stability in Ukraine and globally. 

As HR/VP @Kaja Kallas said this week, let’s deepen the EU-New Zealand partnership with even greater speed and scale.