Thank you to everyone. Thank you to the Swedish Presidency for gathering us in Stockholm. Thank you in particular to those who came from far away.

And thank you to everyone who made this meeting possible - from the ministers to the interpreters, everyone – who have been working to make this meeting an important moment for our relationship.

Special thanks to our Swedish hosts and to you, dear Tobias [Billström, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs] for putting this event together.

Allow me to emphasise three points:

First, with Stockholm in 2023, after Paris in 2022, we are developing a unique forum, characterised by inclusiveness and joint commitment. This will continue.

Second, the matters that the Forum has discussed require action. We do not need more discourses. We need more action, and it needs to be done now. Many issues cannot wait. We need to act together and faster.

[Third], from the side of the European Union, our pledge is clear: we have to be more present and to deliver more.

Our Ministerial Forum gathered over 50 partners and organisations. Certainly, we have heard 50 different approaches to Indo-Pacific issues.

But one common recognition is precisely that we need to act together.

Coming from such a diverse and broad region as the Indo-Pacific and the European Union, ‘acting together’ cannot be taken for granted.

But we have a lot of concrete proposals, I picked up many from my participation in the security roundtable and from the two other sessions.

On security, I noted the broad consensus to step up our cooperation in the field of maritime security, cyber, foreign manipulation of information and counterterrorism, among other topics. We are going to launch EU partnership with the countries in the Indo-Pacific on security issues.

We also discussed the greening of our economies and societies. 

We all face the imperative of fighting the climate crisis and preserving the planet’s ecosystems.

The EU has heard clearly that our success will depend on doing this together, and not by creating obstacles for each other.

Commissioner [for Energy, Kadri] Simson, whom I thank for being here, and I will follow up with our European Commission colleagues.

As for prosperity issues, I believe we all seek diversification and supply chains resilience, in both directions. We need to ensure resilience in a complementary way.

We have a trade agenda. This provides opportunities both ways.

So, what’s next? On the EU side, we want to step up our engagement to deliver more concrete results on the ground.

We will build on the progress achieved so far, including the 20 Global Gateway projects in the Indo-Pacific in 2023, from investment in hydropower and solar energy plants to transportation infrastructures (railway, ports, and airports).

Having been a minister for public works and transportation in Spain I know very well the transformative capacity of building infrastructure that can be done with concrete, but also incorporating digital technologies.

I also know that EU Member States have been increasingly active, notably by their participation in Team Europe initiatives, such as on Sustainable Connectivity in Philippines, the Green Deal for Mozambique, and the Green energy transition in Bangladesh.

And through our political engagement with visits across the region. I myself will take part in the Shangri-La and the ASEAN Region Forum. We have also four summits ahead of us, with the Republic of Korea, Japan, India, and China. We are ready to participate in the East Asia Summit and contribute to its work.

So, we have an agenda to keep us busy. Busy together.

Dear colleagues and friends,

I think it has been an intense and profitable meeting

To conclude, I believe we all see the need to make these Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum a regular event in our calendars.

We have to maintain “l’esprit de Paris”, Madame la Ministre [Catherine Colonna], and to keep up “the Stockholm momentum”, dear Tobias [Billström].

To finish, let me leave you with a final thought.

The Indian historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam, who I think has a closely relative among us, has been exploring our “connected history”. But the history belongs to the past.

Our task is to build a connected future.

And to ensure that this connected future is designed for the benefit of all.

This should be our common endeavour.

Thank you.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-241226