Saint Petersburg Forum sums up three years’ work

Today the 10th Russian-German St. Petersburg Dialogue Forum finished up with a session where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented their speeches to the audience.

The spokesperson for Governor of Sverdlovsk Region says some reports on the results of the forum were also made by Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and the forum’s German co-Chairman, retired Prime Minister Lothar de Messier.

The day before, Zubkov encouraged the forum attendees to draw up a list of proposals that could really improve life in both countries.

For one, the Workshop of the Future section resulted in the decision to introduce the regular Russian-German exchange of history teachers.

The Policy section suggested that the European security issues should be discussed not only during the Saint Petersburg Dialogue Forum but also at its intermediary sessions.

The Culture section prepared a draft of the Russian-German agreement of the movie industry development. The section participants also agreed to organize a few joint exhibitions in 2011-2013.

The Russian and German attendees of the Education, Science, and Healthcare section proposed double diplomas for the two countries’ colleges as well as some training programs for the healthcare workers, a children’s clinic in Moscow, and schemes on promoting scientific research in sports.

The Economics section pointed out the need to discuss the Russian Natural Gas Society’s World Energy Code further; it was suggested that the new legal environment needs to be created for SMEs cooperation and economic upgrades. This section decided to hold an extraordinary meeting late in 2010 or at the beginning of 2011 to speak about the oil and gas chemistry problems.

The section on the Media’s New Economic Models considered a number of pilot projects on reporters’ professional development and debated over the question of whether the society needs state-run media.

The Civil Society group put forward the idea of setting up a national forum that will coordinate the public initiatives in Germany and Russia and help the civil institutions interact with the state. The group also spoke about the current visa regulations.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said to the forum participants present at the final session that the spiritual dialogue between the two countries was also very important. He also pointed out that the state was going to pay more attention to the youth.

Dmitry Medvedev declared he was positive Russia and the EU would end up canceling their visa requirements for each other.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel observed the forum was getting livelier with every coming year. She agreed with Medvedev that visa regulations should be less strict and, like the Russian President, promised to consider the issue.

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