Meeting with the Nordic Region’s eastern and south-western neighbours
Every two years the Nordic Council meets with its partners in the Baltic Assembly and the Benelux Parliament, but this time the circle has expanded. When Russia used military force to move established borders through the annexation of Crimea, the situation in Europe turned serious. The situation has since worsened south of Europe with bloody conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, resulting in several EU countries feeling the pressure from refugees and migrants from these areas. The EU’s neighbourhood policy was touched upon at the meeting, although the focus was on partnership with a number of countries in South-east Europe.
The Vice President of the Nordic Council, Mikkel Dencker of Denmark, welcomed the participants to the meeting at the Danish parliament. He told participants that the Nordic Council held its first session in February 1953 in an adjacent room. At that time, Finland’s chair sat empty. In the coldest period of the Cold War, Finland did not have sufficient room to manoeuvre in order to attend, but went on to join the Nordic Council in 1955 following Stalin’s death. A recurring question at the meeting was whether, after years of positive development, we are now heading towards a new Cold War, or at least towards a period of cooler international relations.
Søren Riishøj, associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark and Danish MP between 1981 and 1994, spoke ahead of the debate. Höskuldur Þórhallsson, President of the Nordic Council in 2015, led the meeting on behalf of the Nordic Council. In this role, he visited Moldova and Ukraine and spoke to Euronest in Strasbourg in October 2015. One of the leaders of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, which is a collaboration between the European Parliament and the parliaments of the partner countries in South-east Europe, is
Victor Dolidze from Georgia. He outlined the current situation to the EU and the Eastern Partnership.
Delegation: “EU and the Eastern Partnership – the present situation” Other speakers included: Giedre Purvaneckiene, Vice President of the Baltic Assembly; Wouter De Vriendt from the Benelux Parliament; Senator Jarosław Obremski from Poland; Attila Tilki from the Hungarian parliament; and Marian Lupu from the Moldovan parliament. The participants had different perspectives on the current situation, but in general the opportunity for dialogue between the various European politicians provided by the meeting was positively received.
In his speech, Þórhallsson quoted a new article, “New Ostpolitik, new soft power”. The conclusion is that we are not in the midst of the Cold War, nor in a new cold war. But we are in a period of conflict. In the Cold War, military power acted as a deterrent, but a crucial element of the changes prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall was “Ostpolitik” and “soft power”. European politicians can learn from history in this regard by making it attractive to join a partnership with warm relations.
