The prime minister in Denmark: by cooperating wisely, we can create our own Silicon Valley with Denmark and other Nordic countries

According to Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Estonia and Denmark are connected in many ways, which is why the visit to Denmark is one of the first foreign visits of her new term of office. 'The bilateral relations of Estonia and Denmark are very good and we have similar views on many issues. I would like to accelerate our cooperation further by reinforcing our economic relations. This is also the reason why I am visiting Denmark with a business delegation which includes representatives of the ecosystem of our venture capital funds and start-ups,' said Kallas.

Speaking at the Estonian-Danish business seminar today, the prime minister stressed that Estonia has a very open, flexible, and dynamic business environment and a strong start-up culture has become a significant part of this environment. On the other hand, according to Kallas, there is huge global competition in the field of start-ups and tech companies. 'All of the countries in the Nordic-Baltic region are too small to achieve huge success alone. However, there are 33 million people living in our region in total and it generates roughly 2% of the global GDP. By cooperating wisely, we can develop a private and venture capital ecosystem which would be very attractive to the large-scale investors in third markets. Instead of competing against one another, we could build the new Silicon Valley - let us call it the new Nordic Tech Valley,' said Kallas.

In the meeting with the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas highlighted the very good defence cooperation of Estonia and Denmark. 'Estonia greatly appreciates our bilateral defence cooperation with Denmark and the role of Denmark in the collective defence of NATO. The strong presence of the Danish forces in the Baltic Sea region helps to ensure the security of all of us,' said Kallas.

According to Kallas, Estonia intends to tighten the cooperation with Denmark to also increase the energy security of our region. 'Offshore wind energy is of key importance in achieving climate neutrality. Denmark is an important offshore wind energy partner for us, with whom we would like to deepen our cooperation and whose years of experience we would like to learn from,' noted Kallas.

Speaking about Russian aggression, Kallas stressed that our guiding principle remains unchanged - freedom must be armed better than tyranny. 'Danish support to Ukraine has been impressive, but we all have to continue to help Ukraine,' stated Kallas. 'The European Union decided together to provide ammunition to Ukraine. Now, the decision must be implemented quickly. The Estonian government has already delivered our share to Ukraine and I would like to call for all others to do the same quickly,' said Kallas.

The Estonian prime minister also noted that we need to concentrate on holding Russia accountable and creating a special international tribunal. We should also continue to look for a EU-level solution for starting to use the frozen Russian assets to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The path to permanent peace can only run through losing the grey areas in the European security. 'The grey areas cause wars and instability. For permanent peace in Europe, we need Ukraine in the NATO and in the EU. If Ukraine completes the 7-point plan of the EU, we should make the decision to open the EU accession negotiations by the end of the year. We also need a strong supportive message to Ukraine at the NATO Summit in Vilnius,' stressed Kallas.

• Speech of Prime Minister Kallas at the Estonian-Danish business seminar (in English)
• Photos