 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Excellencies, ladies. I am a retired man, and therefore I will speak somewhat differently from the previous speaker. But it is not my intention to be too exciting. The first question people ask when they are trying to define the foreign policy of a foreign nation normally tends to be who are their friends, who are their enemies? And it is often thought that if you know that, you will have the answer to the basic question of the foreign policy of the country concerned. Russian Emperor Alexander III said, Russia has only two friends. It's army and it's navy. The present list of friends could be extended somewhat, I believe, because there are some other arms to the military establishment nowadays. And there is, of course, the security police, the nobility present in Russia, as Prime Minister Putin put it. It is often said that an empire that has lost its character has very great difficulties to ever forget it or forgive it that it has lost it. Great power nostalgia lasts for very long. This is no doubt true also of great European empires. Great power nostalgia seems only to fade away with the total military and political disaster as we have seen in the cases of Germany and Japan. But Russia, of course, has not gone through anything of the kind. Although President Putin, at the time, said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. Psychological factors are always present in world affairs. They may not be the most important factors in the framing of policies for the leadership, but they certainly are very much part of the public opinion. Leaders can, and often they also do, use psychological arguments while pursuing perfectly rational ends. Professor Daniel Trismann has written earlier this year in Foreign Affairs a very interesting article on this. The word friendship is in frequent use in international relations. It is seldom defined or even described. Friendly relations among nations is nothing more than the absence of unresolved conflicts with the nations was the way how my diplomatic mentor, Ambassador Ralph Enkel used to say. The absence of conflicts, that's friendly nations. That was perhaps an extreme way of putting it, but the question remains, what is friendship then in international relations? More often than not, it is just another name for coinciding interests. Nations have no permanent friends, no permanent interests at Lord Palmerston. If Russia has few friends, the same would go also for its enemies. It is quite another matter that there are a number of countries which have competing interests with Russia. As I see it, a fruitful way of approaching Russian foreign policy. Where are the interests as they define them? Where are the conflicts in interests? And with whom? Russia knows perfectly well that it is in its own best interest to develop its foreign relations in a manner that is compatible with its economic growth and its development programs in a qualitative sense. And Europe, of course, is by far the most important trading partner, as we heard a moment ago. After all, Europe takes 69% of Russian oil exports and 67% of the gas exports. So the set of commodities is the backbone of the Russian economy and is also the main thing linking it with the rest of Europe. Of course, there is some interdependence, but not as much as is often thought. Germany, by far the most important trading partner for Russia and Europe, takes 36% of gas from Russia. All of that gas does not come from Russian wells, part of which is re-exported from former Soviet republics, such as Kyrgyzstan. And we already heard how important the foreign direct investment in Russia is from Europe, some 70%. For instance, you was a very minor player in this. These figures may get very clear that if Russia is going to diversify its exports and its industrial production, European cooperation is vital. Against that background, it is no wonder that Russia has developed a friendly relationship in particular with Germany, which is its main trading partner. Here, friendship is the same thing as interest. The previous speakers said that the Russians sometimes say they do not understand EU. And I believe that it's half true. Those who are specialists in these things understand that perfectly well. But the common man does not understand. I was once in Moscow when I was asked, who's the one who calls the shots in Europe? And I said, that's not the way how it is run. Everything is run the way that somebody calls the shots, they say. And that, obviously, and they, of course, meant that it will be Germany because it is the larger. Well, I wouldn't say that there is nothing of truth to the answer. In recent times, we have on one hand very much about the reset in US-Russian relations. There is also some evidence that reset is a real thing. The treaty on the reduction of strategic weapons has not very much significance as a military treaty. But as a political sign, it is important. And it is part also of a dialogue between Washington and Moscow. In that sense, it is important. A more tangible thing is that the Russians have made it possible for Americans to supply their troops in Afghanistan through Russian territory using both the airspace and even the railroads. So there are some concrete steps. Then again, there are other events that point to the opposite direction. The American plan to build a defense system against missiles from the so-called rogue states has been, of course, for much euridation. The Americans keep arguing, as does Ambassador Eivor Daalder, their NATO ambassador, that the US missiles are in no way a problem for Russian strategic assets. The missile defense system in Poland is certainly not the way how to intercept Russian missiles shot from the Arctic Sea submarines or Siberian bases. It would be illogical to do that from Poland. And they have been trying to convince Russians here, but Russians have chosen not to believe. NATO enlargement to the neighboring countries of Russia is another burnout contention. Russians claim that at the time when they drew their troops from East Germany that they got assurances that NATO would not be enlarged later on, it is impossible to verify whether such insurances ever were given. NATO enlargement, in other words, is a very real thing. But it's quite interesting to see how they have changed their position from what the Soviet Union had. In 1975, in the Helsinki Summit meeting, Russians subscribed to the documents which stated very clearly that every nation has the right to be allied or non-allied as it chooses. Now, the Russian Federation is not as liberal as the Soviet Union was on this particular aspect. Russians, of course, know perfectly well that NATO has neither the will nor the capacity to threaten Russian lands. NATO is simply not capable of anything of the kind, nor is Russia capable of invading any NATO territory. But why, then, are Russians so upset because of this enlargement? My simple reading is that Russia believes and probably quite correctly that when countries join NATO, they feel more confident against Russia and they are likely pay less attention to Russian interests because they feel more secure. This perhaps explains the fact that the countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia have increased their military cooperation, the so-called Bezegrad countries, by forming a battle group. And they have increased their cooperation with Americans overall. The fact that Poland is prepared to host the ballistic missile defense system is one indication of this. The fact that they are also welcoming American fighters and transport airplanes to their territory, the stationing of this means that they really wish to have American boots on the ground. And having American boots on the ground is pretty much the same thing as we saw during the Cold War when we were talking about an American tripwire in Europe. That makes a country with American physical presence untouchable. Russia has already announced that they are in the possession of installing a new generation of missiles on some of its European borders, and that they are contemplating stationing esconderd missiles in the Kaliningrad. They have also said that they are contemplating the abrogation of the START agreement if Americans really do build their ballistic missile defense system. Now some analysts say that this sabre rattling is for domestic consumption. Perhaps it is. But I wouldn't be comforted by the fact that the Russian general public insists upon sabre rattling. As you might conclude from what I have said so far, I think that the Russians have not yet really thought through their foreign policy. On one side, they have this particular relationship with Germany, which has so much worried in particular the Poles. And on the other hand, the Poles have improved greatly their relationship with Russia, which we saw in a very dramatic fashion as the very tragic accident of place where the Polish president and his entourage were all killed. That was in the context of going to a memorial service for the Katin massacre where 22,000 Poles were massacred by the Russian police during World War II. As far as the bilateral political relationship is concerned, I would like to add something about NATO. Whenever we have parliamentary elections or political elections, the question of Finnish relationship to what's NATO pops up. It has been debated this very week in Helsinki because we are in the midst of a change of government and we are likely, according to the latest information, to have a government this week. And in that government program, normally there is a sentence or two about how we say NATO. The Russians say that it is up to Finland how it defines its relationship with NATO. And it is up to Russia what the conclusions are. Now, this, of course, is a low-level warning, not a threat, but a low-level warning. For the time being, this is unnecessary because finishing the embassy in NATO is not in the cards. There is no popular support for it. Only about one-fifth of Finns think it's a good idea. And the present political leadership and, in particular, the present president, outgoing president, is clearly opposed to the idea. Broadly speaking, Russia is in a cooperative mood these days. Wherever it has shared interests. And we have seen that to be true, in particular, with the European Union and more even so with the Federal Republic of Germany. Russia is wary about those of its neighbors which seek a closer relationship with the United States. But nevertheless, I think we could still say that Russian policies, both domestic and international, are not yet clearly defined. And it may take some time before in Russia we can say that it has moved from an unclear situation into a situation where we could say it is a democracy without adjectives. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.