draw a parallel between the sterling club of the 1930 ’ s and the efta of the 1960 ’ s. both included the uk and the nordic countries. efta was of course a trade bloc unlike the sterling club, and it was a different time, but in both instances britain and finland were joined by a form of special economic relationship. * * * the contacts between our countries have been frequent on many levels, including the highest. in 1963, soon after the finnish associate membership in efta had been achieved, the uk prime minister harold macmillan visited finland. president urho kekkonen hosted a dinner in his honour. in his dinner speech, kekkonen told a story, which tested everybody´s sense of humour. he spoke about the arrival of the british bishop henry in finland. this happened more than 850 years ago for the purpose of converting our ancestors to the christian faith. " the attempt failed ", kekkonen stressed, “ for the bishop was killed here with an axe. but our ancestors were not ungrateful killers. proof of this is that they later realized the good and honest intentions of the bishop, and made him the patron saint of finland. this course of events – at least its latter part – would probably in britain be regarded as fair play ", kekkonen told the visiting british prime minister. efta was seen by many as only an intermediate stage in european integration. already in 1961, the british and danish applied for membership in the eec, closely followed by norway. the neutral efta states sweden, austria and switzerland applied for association. due to our geopolitical position, finland was not able to follow the same course of action. the eec was seen, already then, as more than just a trade area, and rightly so. this political dimension precluded the finnish participation at the time. but the enlargement negotiations failed twice in 1963 and 1967, mainly due to the ¨non! ¨ to british membership by french president de gaulle. meanwhile, finland took prudent steps towards the west, and in 1968 we became a member of the oecd, the successor to oeec, that had been established for the delivery of marshall aid. we also participated in the nordek negotiations of 1968 – 70 aiming for a customs union or an economic community between the nordic countries. these negotiations did not lead to an agreement. in france, president georges pompidou followed de gaulle and edward heath

, too, together with ireland. to compensate for its geographic distance from the continent, finland has wanted to be in the institutional core. a word about central banks : although britain never joined the single currency, the bank of england is a member of the european system of central banks, where we co - operate on many things, even if not monetary policy. there and elsewhere i have had the opportunity to work together with the bank of england governors mervyn king and mark carney. the bank of england is an institution highly respected also by us at the ecb. * * * ladies and gentlemen : we are now entering a new phase in the economic and political relationship between the uk and finland, as the uk has decided to leave the eu. the eu gave us - the finns and the british – a new platform, where both countries have worked together daily for our common interests and been like - minded on many issues. the brexit vote in the 2016 referendum was a surprise and also disappointment for most finns. there is still a lot of uncertainty. today, more than a year after the brexit vote, we still don¹t know the overall framework of our future relations. this tells much of the complexity of the situation. but whatever is the final outcome of the brexit process, finland and the uk will remain close european partners. our common interests in many issues will not disappear and we must find ways to collaborate, drawing inspiration from the long history of our good bilateral relations. thank you for your attention. 5 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches