Decisions made at the 2024 Session of the Nordic Council

One of the key issues on the agenda over the past year has been a proposal from the Presidium of the Nordic Council to update the Helsinki Treaty – the “constitution” of official Nordic co-operation, which governs the work of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The proposal was passed in plenary. The proposal recommends that defence and security policy as well as climate policy be included, and that the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland have even greater opportunities to participate in Nordic co-operation on an equal footing with the other Nordic countries. The next step in the process is for the Nordic governments to consider the Nordic Council’s recommendation.

The Nordic Council wants the Nordic countries to establish a defence and security commission that also includes Nordic parliamentarians. It is proposed that the commission also investigates opportunities for closer co-operation concerning the security situation in the Arctic and the Baltic Sea, as well as hybrid warfare and cybersecurity.

During the Session, the Nordic Council passed a proposal from the Committee for a Sustainable Nordic Region, recommending that the Nordic countries commit to halting seabed mining of rare earth metals in international waters until comprehensive analyses have been conducted regarding the environmental, social, and economic impacts. 

Click the link below to see the full list of decisions and voting results for all 23 items addressed during the session. The page also contains links to the decision texts in Scandinavian, Finnish, and Icelandic.