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After 1989

Regional support and global vision in a new world order

The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 fundamentally changed the political map of Northern Europe.

At the end of 1989, democracy was introduced to Poland and the GDR, which then reunited with West Germany on 3 October 1990. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The Baltic countries, which had previously tried to assert greater autonomy, now regained the full independence they had enjoyed between the two World Wars.

Even prior to independence, the Nordic countries had made contact with the Baltic nations to discuss setting up Nordic Council of Ministers information offices there.

In 1994, referenda on membership of the EU were held in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Finland and Sweden voted to join, which they did on 1 January 1995, along with Austria. In Norway, a majority has declined EU membership twice.

In October 1999, the five Nordic nations opened a joint embassy complex in Berlin, which had become the capital of Germany once again. The move from Bonn, close to the French border, shifted the political centre of gravity in Germany towards the north-east.

In 2007, the Bundestag in Berlin was the setting for the annual Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC), in which the Nordic Council has been an active participant ever since the first conference in January 1991 – six months before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The whole of the Baltic Sea Region – with the exception of the Russian areas around St Petersburg and Kaliningrad – is now part of the EU. Contact between the Nordic and Baltic partners is still particularly close, but only time will tell in which direction Nordic co-operation will develop.

Contact

Marita Hoydal
Phone: 29692915
The Nordic Region

History of the Nordic region

This history of the Nordic region from the Viking times to the present.
The Nordic Council

The history of the Nordic Council

After the Second World War the politicians of the time strived for stronger international co-operation. This was the time when the United Nations was established, the Council of Europe created and the first steps were taken towards the EU. At the same time there were many discussions on much closer Nordic co-operation. As a result the Nordic Council was formed in 1952.
Nordic Council of Ministers

History of the Nordic Council of Ministers

The Nordic Council of Ministers was established in 1971 after an attempt at Nordic economic co-operation, the so-called Nordek, had failed the year before. Denmark and Norway voted on membership of the EC in 1972, and one of the goals of the Nordic Council of Ministers was to maintain Nordic co-operation, in the event that some of the Nordic countries also became EC members.