Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 52

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION
IN NORDIC ATLANTIC REGIONS
vironment for regionalisation of innova-
tion. But the exact nature of that social in-
tegration is important. For instance, the cri-
sis in Southern Italy (compared to the pros-
perous ‘Third Italy’) might in some ways
be related to the lack of a ‘civic culture’
which could perhaps have secured a degree
of efficient economic action instead of the
prevalent “Mistrust, fear, (and) the retreat
to particularistic social groupings...” (Stor-
per, 1995). In this and other cases of under-
developed EU regions, the regional policy
of nation-states and a European Union
which provides general purpose civic facil-
ities (in terms of infrastructure etc.) has
failed. Existing forms of local social organ-
isation lack certain collective capacities to
handle and use the European environment
in the way that national governments and
the EU assumed they would.
The similar distance found between local
forms of social control and national politi-
cal forms can also be found in the Faroese
separation of the interests of national poli-
tics from the concerns of the “village
world”, which is a socio-cultural ideal re-
fletcing traditional communities of Faroese
villages. This was particularly apparent just
after the 1992 economic crisis. Il is simply
not enough to legitimise politics by naming
it ‘village development’ (bygdamenning),
if politicians are unable to mobilise the ca-
pabilities of people.
There are few current examples of re-
gional policies as positive forces for re-
gionalisation. Regionalisation as the devel-
opment of innovative regions is normally
the case where regional policy was not re-
quired. Perhaps regional policy might be
needed to cope with the consequences of
innovative regionalisation in the regions ex-
cluded from any initiative, to regulate in
favour of the losers in the process. There-
fore, as long as regional cooperation and re-
gionalist policies are no more than regional
policy conducted at a higher level, as it is in
most North Atlantic cases, regionalisation
as a socio-economic process of the devel-
opment of dynamic regions is only relevant
in cases very different from most North At-
lantic localities.
Conclusion - the challenge
of regionalisation in
North Atlantic fisheries
A “Europe of the Regions” is, as yet, by no
means a reality, although in some cases the
concept may anticipate future develop-
ments. From the beginning, the BEAR ini-
tiative has been conceptualised and pre-
sented as being a part of the larger plan for
a “Europe of the Regions”. Therefore,
BEAR will also potentially contribute to
new forms of regional cooperation within
Europe, but in what ways are these forms of
regional cooperation new?
The ongoing participation of nation-
states as players in regional cooperation
seems to be a fact of life. The BEAR initia-
tive should be conceptualised as a new
form of energetic foreign policy, which has
been integrated with regional policy. How-
ever, in several respects West Nordic/
Nordic Atlantic Cooperation has found na-
tion-states to be barriers to its development
plans. In spite of the differences between
them, both the BEAR and NORA initia-
tives do contain certain, broadly speaking,