Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 43

TÝDNINGURIN AV TVØRTJOÐA SAMSTARVl í NORÐURATLANTSØKINUM
41
Ministers cannot engage in foreign policy-
making. This was also one reason why the
original Finnish Great Calotte initiative to
extend North Calotte cooperation (having
the same status as West Nordic Coopera-
tion) with the Murmansk Region of Russia
was not completed, and the alternative Nor-
wegian Barents initiative - ignoring
“weak” Nordic cooperation - was imple-
mented (Aalbu etal., 1995: 18).
In addition, problems associated with es-
tablishing regional cooperation ‘from be-
low’ are also related to the formal status
and power of the regions directly involved.
The different roles of regions and regional
policies in different countries “ ...give un-
equal starting points for new regional coop-
eration in different regions” (Kakonen,
1996: 58). From this statement, it can be
expected that a self-governing area would
be a favourable position from which to
build new forms of regional cooperation, as
has been the case within the Inuit Circurn-
polar Congress (ICC), in which Greenland
is a dynamic participant. However, there
are several reasons for the rather low prior-
ity of West Nordic Cooperation/NORA to
date:
- although fisheries and the contacts be-
tween Faroese and Greenlanders in this
context have provided a starting point for
cooperation, differences between the
Greenlandic Inuit culture and Faroese/
Icelandic West Nordic culture explain to
some degree why Greenlanders might
take a greater interest in cultural-political
cooperation between Inuit and other in-
digenous people in America, the Russian
Federation and Nordic countries (the
Sami).
- although having a common West Nordic
culture and language as a starting point,
Iceland as an autonomous nation has lit-
tle to gain from West Nordic cooperation,
having been at the forefront of establish-
ing Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs)
during the cod wars of the 1970s, and to-
day possessing a fairly competitive fish-
eries sector (see last section). From time
to time, Faroese fish products have been
sold through Icelandic sales organisa-
tions and Iceland is usually quite gener-
ous when allocating fish quotas to its
Faroese ‘cousin’. But Icelandic visions of
West Nordic cooperation appear rather
weak (Johansen, 1993). Within NORA,
Iceland seems to concentrate its efforts on
the ‘big brother’ state of Norway, in spite
of serious conflicts over fisheries man-
agement.
- although Denmark has demonstrated a
rather strong consensus over giving home
rule to the Faroe Islands and Greenland,
in practice Danish interests have been a
barrier to West Nordic Cooperation, for
example the Danish Ministry of Traffic
protecting the interests SAS (Scandina-
vian Airlines System) in avoiding com-
petitors in trans-Atlantic routes. Green-
land Air did not get permission to flights
to Denmark untill 1997. As Denmark has
bestowed home rule on the Faroe Islands
and Greenland, there are no strong Dan-
ish political initiatives to support West
Nordic/NORA Cooperation, although the
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs does
represent Greenland and the Faroe Is-