May, 2008
An international newsletter from the Nordic Council and The Nordic Council of Ministers
Welcome to the monthly newsletter now published in a new form as a net version only. The purpose is to inform about issues on the Nordic agenda and focus on some of the events and results of the official Nordic cooperation.
"The Riksgränsen Declaration issued by the prime ministers injects new vigour into the ongoing and intensive joint work being done to face up to the challenges posed by globalisation. The Riksgränsen meeting provided a new boost to the sense of community felt by the Nordic countries," said a very contented Secretary General in Swedish Riksgränsen after the meeting, which has been dubbed "a Nordic Davos Meeting".
“It was an advantage for the Nordic countries when the EU opened its borders in 2004 and the Eastern European countries began sending labour to the Nordic region. Paradoxically, Norway, which is outside the EU, has received the highest number of immigrants while Sweden, with no restrictions of access, has received the fewest,” explained Norwegian researcher Line Eldring at a seminar in Copenhagen on the effect of free mobility of labour.
“If the future of the planet is to be assured we will have to raise our game and do something about the crisis we face right away,” former Vice-President of the USA, Al Gore, told a climate conference on the Faroe Islands. Gore expects the countries of the world to agree on a new treaty to further reduce CO2 emissions at the major UN Climate Summit in Denmark in 2009.
All the regional organisations in the Nordic and surrounding areas should work together in the run-up to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen next year, the Swedish Delegation to the Nordic Council wrote in a proposal to the Presidium.
The challenges facing the Nordic armed forces have radically changed since the end of the Cold War. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have deployed several thousand soldiers not only on peace-keeping missions but also directly into war zones, for example, in Afghanistan. The common challenges were the subject of a seminar on 4 April organised by the Danish Institute for Military Studies.
The President of the Nordic Council, Erkki Tuomioja, believes that the Nordic languages should be used to the greatest extent possible in official Nordic co-operation.
A joint effort to combat trafficking in human beings was one of the main themes for a joint conference organised by the Baltic Assembly and Nordic Council in Riga, Friday 25 April.
