Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 41

TÝDNINGURIN AV TVØRTJOÐA SAMSTARVl í NORÐURATLANTSØKINUM
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a. Regional cooperation between regions
of countries, home-rule areas, nation
states and the European Union
The different legal positions and roles of
participating regions seem crucial, when
evaluating cases of transnational regional
cooperation. Nordic Atlantic Cooperation
(NORA) includes one nation-state (Ice-
land), two self-governing areas of the Dan-
ish Realm (Greenland and the Faroe Is-
lands) and two regions of one country -
Northern and Western Norway. Northern
and Western Norway is represented by re-
gional bodies (Regional Committe of
Northern Norway and Namdalen, and
SAVOS), also involving the central Min-
istry of Municipal and Labour Affairs
(Norway).
The Barents Euro-Arctic Region
(BEAR) has a new internationally-oriented
two-pronged structure. The first is a coun-
cil comprising the Nordic nation-states,
Russia and the EU - in effect a council of
Ministries of Foreign Affairs, but each
country can also be represented by other
ministers (i.e. a meeting of ministers of the
environment) or just officials.
The second is a council of the regional
bodies directly involved. Here national dif-
ferences in administration at the regional
(county/oblast/republic) level become ap-
parent. For example Norway and parts of
the Russian Federation have politically
elected regional councils which appoint
their own regional political leaders, while
regional leaders in Sweden and Finland are
officials appointed by the central state ad-
ministration.
The NORA and BEAR initiatives are hy-
brids of a different type when compared to
the two traditional types of trans-national
cooperation (Bærenholdt, 1997) which can
be broadly described as follows:
a. Initiatives which encourage cross-border
cooperation between regions of different
nation-states with common borders (e.g.
EU Interreg projects)
b. Initiatives which encourage transnation-
al cooperation between nation-states
within an overall region of the world
(e.g. the Arctic Council)
By definition - and in terms of priorities -
NORA is type a. and BEAR type b., but
there is no doubt that further hybrids of re-
gional and international policies will devel-
op in the future. Nordic Cooperation in it-
self, which has never been successful in ar-
eas of “high politics” such as foreign poli-
cy, has had its major impact in areas of “low
political” cooperation such as research, ed-
ucation and culture (Schiller, 1995), and is
now increasingly oriented towards
strengthening its position vis a vis the EU.
Nordic cooperation has been given the role
of coordinating Nordic viewpoints in rela-
tion to the EU, especially as only Denmark,
Sweden and Finland are members. But fol-
lowing the traditions of ‘weak’ Nordic co-
operation, this background work has been
given a somewhat informal status and is by
no means a committed cooperation of for-
eign policies.
Nordic Atlantic Cooperadon can be seen
in this context: as a way of handling EU and
the European Economic Area (EEA) rela-
tions on behalf of regions and nations that