it is a great pleasure to be here today. I am very thankful for the exceptional hospitality we have experienced here on the Faroe Islands. This is certainly an experience I will never forget. My visit today shows how much the European Union values our partnership and friendship. It is a trusted partnership, and a natural partnership, because of course the Faroe Islands belong to the wider European family. We share the same values. We are democracies, actively promoting stability and a global order that is based on rules. Your support to the brave nation of Ukraine is truly commendable, and we join forces here. I want to thank you for your efforts to align on our sanctions against Russia. I know that it comes at a cost for the Faroe Islands, which makes us more impressed by your clear stance. And rest assured we stand by your side what this is concerned. And with our new Declaration on enhanced cooperation, that we have signed just a minute ago, we are basically opening a new chapter in our economic and our political cooperation. Let me deep-dive a little bit on that topic.
First of all, of course we are deepening our trade relations. The European Union is already among your top trading partners. We can build on decades of excellent cooperation with privileged access for your products to our Single Market. In 2022, almost 100% of Faroese seafood exports to Europe came in duty-free. But now, with the new agreement, we will discuss now how to improve further your access to our market. And here, we want to include in our discussion also the higher value-added seafood products, so the processed seafood products. And it includes the understanding, of course, and we discussed that, that we keep high standards in terms of sustainability and fisheries management.
The second point I want to stress is that we also want to broaden the scope of our partnership. We are already doing great work together under for example Europe's Horizon programme. We just saw it with renewable energy where Horizon Europe played a role in developing these technologies. We are teaming up on Arctic research, for example. We would like to start working on more areas where we share interests, be it digital technologies, education or skills development. And we have spoken about Erasmus+ and Creative Europe, and we would be very happy to deepen the cooperation here and to increase the number of exchanges for example in the framework of Erasmus+. Of course, a very important topic for us is the fight against climate change. You have impressive resources for wind and hydropower, and I saw it today as we were visiting the wind park and seeing the whole concept of renewable energy. So, I am not only deeply impressed but I am absolutely sure that you will reach your goal of sourcing all your land-based electricity from sustainable supplies by 2030. This is what you presented today, in the morning, and it was amazing to see the strategic approach to really reach the goal for renewable energy by 2030. On that topic, we can have very fruitful exchanges of best practices be it your experience and our experience on energy efficiency, electrification and storage, of course this is always a big topic. So the overall big topic is the fight against climate change where we want to join forces and where a lot of business opportunities are waiting to be developed.
Allow me a word on our shared region that is the North Atlantic. It is a focal point of course for trade, military operations, and, more than ever, geopolitical competition. So your position is eminently strategic. You are a gateway to the Arctic, and climate change is not the only challenge anymore. We know that countries like Russia and China are increasingly assertive. This could have an impact on the stability of the region and on the broader European neighbourhood. This is why we must strengthen our political partnership. And we stand together, for the Arctic to remain a peaceful and safe region. We are like-minded partners, without any doubt, bound by shared values and ties of trade and trust. And I am very glad that we are taking our cooperation now to the next level with the signing of the MoU.
