Baltic Sea NGO Forum 8 May 2003, Turku Finland

Northern Dimension - Human Dimension

Strengthening Civil Society in the Baltic Sea Region

On behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers I would like to thank you for this opportunity to participate in your meeting and inform you about Nordic co-operation.

I would also like to congratulate you on this big NGO Forum, where you gather to discuss one of the most crucial issues in our times - Sustainable lifestyles and human rights in changing societies.

For me it is a historical moment to come to a conference, which deals with democracy, human rights, and gender equality in a country like Finland that has taken some very important steps on the political arena not only by having chosen a woman as a president of the country but also by having formed a government with 50 % women and 50% men and a woman as a prime minister.

What are the Nordic Countries?

The Nordic countries have worked closely together on political issues for 50 years. Inter-parliamentary co-operation has been channelled through the Nordic Council, the forum for members of the Nordic Parliaments since 1952. Inter-governmental co-operation has been the remit of the Nordic Council of Ministers since 1971. The people of the Nordic countries are joined together by language, culture and history. New impulses from within the Nordic countries and from elsewhere, influence Nordic identity. The new century and the rapid pace of European co-operation and globalisation have thrown up a large number of new challenges.

Sustainable development is a key international challenge on local, national, regional and of course on a global level. Huge efforts have been done to discussing goals and targets on all of the mentioned levels.

Now we face the implementation. How to make things happen? How to fulfill the goals?

Sustainable Development - New Bearings for the Nordic Countries

In 1998 the Nordic Prime Ministers and the political heads of the self-governing areas adopted a political Declaration on sustainable development. In this Declaration the regional challenges in the Nordic Countries should be met on a regional basis and, as one of the first regional strategies, the Nordic strategy "Sustainable Development - New Bearings for the Nordic Countries" was adopted in 2001.

The strategy focuses on areas in which the Nordic Countries:

The common Nordic strategy affirms our strong commitment to implement sustainable development by making the necessary choices and actions in order to obtain results for the present and future generations. The strategy has also influenced the development of national strategies by defining a politically binding common baseline.

Five cross-sectoral issues are included in the strategy: climate change, biological diversity, the sea, chemicals, and food safety.

The strategy also focuses on efforts to integrate environmental considerations and sustainable development in six important sectors - energy, transport, agriculture, business and industry, fisheries, and forestry.

Strengthening public participation, local Agenda 21 activities and initiatives to promote the knowledge base, co-operation on instruments, and resource efficiency are commitments as well.

In our experience one of the main challenges is to connect the three pillars of economic, environmental and social sustainability and make them inter-operative.

During negotiation on the Nordic Strategy for Sustainable Development the draft was published on the web site of the Nordic Council of Ministers and in the course of events it was sent out for a hearing among approx. 200 Nordic NGOs of which contributed with many valuable ideas.

Adjacent Areas

For the last 12 years Nordic co-operation has increasingly reached out to include the Adjacent Areas - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North-West Russia and the Arctic. The co-operation with the Adjacent Areas has been strengthened during the last years, not only on a practical level but also on a political level.

The major objectives for the Council of Ministers in its co-operation with the Adjacent Areas, has so far been to contribute towards a development which is safe and stable in all respects, to strengthen the democracy, to widen the community of shared values with the Northern parts of Europe, and also to contribute in developing a market economy and to further sustainable development in the region. With the EU enlargement there will be a gradual change of focus from the Baltic countries to Northwest Russia.

The common budget of the Nordic Council of Ministers this year is 782 million Danish Crowns, corresponding to roughly 100 million Euro. A fifth of the budget is earmarked for activities in the Adjacent Areas.

Projects funded by the NCM

Through the Framework programme for the Adjacent Areas the Nordic Council of Ministers funds projects:

Contacts in the Adjacent Areas

The Nordic Council of Ministers has information offices with Nordic directors in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and St. Petersburg and Information points with local employees in Klaipeda, Tartu, Narva, Archangelsk, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk.

Co-operation with other regional organisations

In line with the development in the Adjacent Areas, the number of actors in the region has increased. In addition to a number of NGO´s to whom the Nordic Council of Ministers provides assistance through various project activities, also a number of more weighty, inter-state actors are at work. The Baltic Sea Council, The Barents Council, and the Arctic Council are among the bodies with whom the Nordic Council of Ministers would seek to form a closer dialogue in the years to come.

Last but not least I would like to emphasize that the Nordic Council of Ministers is intensively engaged in activities relating to the Northern Dimension and has given its submission to the new action plan for 2004-2006. One of the primary objectives of the new Action Plan should be to promote better coordination of existing initiatives and projects and to focus on division of responsibilities between the actors involved. From the NCM´s point of view the new action plan should promote the establishment of Northern Dimension Partnerships. In particular, it should support an effective division of labour and co-ordination between organisations such as the EU and regional organisations like NCM, CBSS, the BEAC and AC and their member states to ensure the involvement of international financial institutions. The NCM is prepared to play a constructive role in such a process.

Public Participation and Local Agenda 21

The development in the Adjacent Areas is of great significance to the Nordic countries. The co-operation with the countries in the Adjacent Areas is intended to contribute towards developing and stimulating shared attitudes in the work for peace, security, gender equality, democracy and sustainable development. Continued well-developed co-operation with the Baltic countries and Northwest Russia is an important contribution towards stability and democracy in the region.

Broad public participation in decision-making processes is a fundamental condition for sustainable development. The Nordic strategy for sustainable development therefore emphasizes the need for:

A substantial part of Agenda 21 has to do with the need for strengthening the opportunities of all groups to be party to genuine partnership on sustainable development; about what should be done to improve conditions for women, how to involve young people, and indigenous peoples and their communities; about the independence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the need to cooperate constructively with them.

In the Nordic Region and the Adjacent Areas there are several national, regional, and international NGO that are already making a considerable contribution to promote sustainable development in different contexts. The Nordic Council of Ministers has adopted guidelines for co-operation with NGO´s and NGO´s all over the Nordic Region and in the Adjacent Areas are invited to take part in the implementation of the Nordic Strategy for Sustainable Development. At the moment the strategy is being evaluated and in next year the Nordic countries will start negotiating a revised strategy for 2005-2008. To ensure active participation of NGO´s a chat line will be opened on the home page of the Nordic Council of ministers www.norden.org in the middle of June this year where contributions from NGO´s are most welcome.

I wish you a fruitful discussion with many good results for you future work.