Closing Words by Dr Jānis Vucāns

Closing Wordsby Dr Jānis Vucāns, Chair of the BSPCThank you, Carola, for your kind words. Thank you for the inspiring presentation of the Hamburg presidency in the BSPC. It`s a pleasure for me to hand over the presidency from Latvia to Hamburg. And I hold this symbolic relay baton which traditionally goes from one presidency to another one. Therefore, please, now this is yours.Symbolically this baton has a power of good thoughts, which means that we wish you a very successful presidency for your year and this is with best wishes. I ask all Germans to help Carola organise this conference because I know how difficult it is, how much it is necessary to have a good team and to have support from all sides is very important in this organisational work. Good luck!And now in the capacity of outgoing president, I would like to emphasise that it has been a true honor to be the BSPC President and it was a great responsibility for us, the Latvian parliamentarians, to preside over the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference at a time when the Baltic region and the whole of Europe is facing great challenges which affect all of us together as well as everybody individually.That is why, with a great sense of responsibility, the Latvian presidency strived to reach an agreement on joint policy as implemented by the legislature and the executive power in order to provide the people of our countries with the sense that we are living and will continue to live in a secure and open and unified region.During this conference, there are prepared materials which are already distributed to you. This is the nutshell from this conference. There is additionally a first edition of the booklet about 25 Years BSPC, but the additional information is that there will be the second edition of this booklet where also material from this 25th conference will be included and Bodo promised that it will be prepared quite soon.I would like to thank also everyone who has participated in the organisation of this 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. First of all, my thanks go to all of you, the parliamentarians, experts, government representatives, and guests for your active involvement.Let me express thanks also to the management of the Latvians Parliament, Saeima Administration of Parliament and the staff of the Saeima for the support and assistance in efficiently organising this conference.Many thanks also to you, Bodo Bahr, and to you, Ingrida Sticenko, and to your teams of Secretariat for your very significant input in our work.And finally, our special thanks to the interpreters sitting in that room for their amazing job that greatly simplified our work over the past couple of days.I hope that you had pleasant stay in my country and we Latvians tried to do the best. I now declare the 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference closed. Thank you all!