After the end of the Cold War – in January of 1993 – the Barents cooperation came to life through the signing of the Kirkenes Declaration. Trust and stability were to be developed through this new framework for cooperation between states, regional units, and people – primarily in the northern parts of Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
Three decades later – with Russia’s hot war against its neighboring country and harsh measures against its domestic civil society – questions are being raised about what successes the cooperation can actually claim and even the framework’s right to life. […]
At the event, they will present their views on the cooperation results, the Ukraine War’s effects on the border-crossing interaction, possible moves for rebuilding trust, and how the Barents region may look in five, ten, and thirty new years.
”We know that the Barents model has been of great interest to other border areas in Europe. We may resume cooperation with Russia again at some point in the future and it is therefore important to summarize what the prerequisites were for it to work and which mechanisms contributed to this,” Jacobsen points out. […]
– The Barents cooperation is a formalized collaboration primarily between Russia, Norway, Finland, and Sweden – designed to promote stability and sustainable development in a region which was characterized by military tension during the Cold War.
– The cooperation was established through the Kirkenes Declaration in 1993, stemming from a top-political process led by the MFA’s in Norway and Russia – and a regional process with initiatives for business and cultural cooperation between northern counties in the two states. These two levels structure the cooperation. Läs artikel