Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Side 54

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION
IN NORDIC ATLANTIC REGIONS
Nordic Atlantic projects is inuch too small,
compared to the level of Norwegian fund-
ing for BEAR projects.
In the high quality catch and production
of cod products in particular, combined
fisheries cooperation in resource manage-
ment and price politics could be of funda-
mental importance. It is essential to both
the BEAR and NORA Cooperations, seen
in a European context, that the non-rational
outcomes of intra-North Atlantic competi-
tion for resources and on prices should be
tackled. Within this lie some potentials of
regionalisation. Internally, a sense of re-
gional identity already exists, and external-
ly as well from the perspective of fish con-
sumers. Cooperation in fisheries does not
have to incorporate the silent Finnish and
Swedish participants in the Barents Region
but it certainly must include West Nordic
countries, due to their access to fish re-
sources. Therefore, the threat to fisheries of
BEAR policies, is the danger of concentrat-
ing solely on Norwegian-Russian coopera-
tion, which is a cooperation of limited per-
spectives. How the Barents Region and
Nordic Atlantic Cooperation can be inter-
linked, although placed in different institu-
tional spaces, is an open question.
At the same time, the Norwegian BEAR
policy should be recognised for its under-
standing of the importance of political dis-
course today. If an idea is suggested often
enough, perhaps someone will carry it
through or frnance it! It appears to be a
problem of the BEAR that it seems to con-
sist of so much talking, but apparently re-
gionalisation through discussion and con-
sultation is important. The well-developed
and regionally founded Norwegian politi-
cal culture produces a very different level
of public debate to that found in other West
Nordic countries. Using the tradition of Po-
mor trade (between Northern Norway and
the White Sea area in the 18th and 19th
century) in particular in regionalisation, has
already been quite successful in the BEAR
initiative. But earlier Viking trade actually
extended from ‘Vineland’ (America/New-
foundland) and Greenland in the west, to
‘Bjarmaland’ and Novgorod in the east
(and to Normandy in the south, as well!).
The Viking Age was characterised by the
dynamic and extemally oriented activities
of the North towards continental Europe.
More energetic politics in trade and coop-
eration are also needed today to advance
Nordic Atlantic Cooperation!
The comparative analysis of the Nordic
Atlantic Cooperation versus the Barents
Euro-ArcticRegion Cooperations reveals a
principal local/global dilemma: should re-
gional policies first of all involve and coor-
dinate already locally established institu-
tions and businesses, thereby risking failure
to create and build any new development or
institutions, or should regional policies
meet the challenges of globalisation by pur-
suing ambitious new transnational initia-
tives involving foreign policy, thereby risk-
ing the raising of high expectations which
cannot be fulfilled by concrete activities?
To find a way to manage this dilemnia
involves a more concrete formulation of the
objectives of regional cooperation policies
in relation to a specific analysis of the prob-
lems faced by the regions involved (and
here the role of security policy objectives