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Nordic Council of Ministers
The Nordic Council of Ministers is member of AEBR with observer status. Since the 1980s, AEBR has been co-operating with the Nordic Council of Ministers, which was founded in 1971, and particularly with the executive who is in charge with regional policy and cross-border co-operation. The Nordic Council of Ministers is represented in the AEBR Executive Committee.
As a part of its regional policy, the Nordic Council of Ministers provides support the nine Scandinavian cross-border regions. The Committee of Higher Officers for Nordic Regional Policy (NERP) has intensified cross-border regional policy since the 1990s. It invited representatives of AEBR to participate in its meetings with the border regions and underlined the necessity of scientific advice for project development and programme evaluation.
AEBR supported the implementation of the INTERREG Programmes in Scandinavia by organising several information seminars and meetings, both for land and maritime borders.
On initiative of AEBR, the Nordic Council of Ministers thoroughly dealt with border problems from 1999-2002 and presented potential solutions to the Scandinavian governments (Ole Norrback, Stuttrapport ANP 2002:719).
The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM), formed in 1971, is the forum for Nordic governmental co-operation (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and autonomous regions of Faroe Islands, Greenland and Ã…land). More information on www.norden.org
The work is co-ordinated by the Nordic ministers of co-operation. The Council of Ministers consists of several individual councils of ministers. Regional issues are dealt within the Council of Ministers for Trade, Energy and Regional Policies (MR-NER). The Nordic Council of Ministers has its own secretariat in Copenhagen.
The Nordic Council of Ministers' activities are financed by the five Nordic countries. Each country's contribution is determined by a distribution plan which indicates that country's share of the collective gross national product. The total budget of the NCM in 2007 was almost 110 million Euro.
The overall objective of the Nordic Council of Ministers' regional policy work is to participate in the development of opportunities and reduce problems stemming from the existence of one or more national borders within a region.
In the late 1970s, several Nordic border regions began to receive project funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers. Currently eight Nordic border regions (Archipelago, Øresund, Kvarken, North Calotte, ARKO, Østfold-Bohuslän/Dalsland, Mid Nordic and NORA) are receiving annually about 2 million Euro for different project activities.
Since 2002 the NCM has been supporting development of the network of cross-border regions in the Baltic countries and Northwest Russia. This initiative resulted in the BSR INTERREG III B project "Baltic Euroregional Network" (BEN), implemented in 2005-2007, which created a network of Euroregions/CBC structures in the Baltic Sea Region (more about project on www.benproject.org).
In 2007 the Nordic Freedom of Movement Forum was established, and Ole Norrback, a former Finnish Minister for Nordic Co-operation and diplomat, will head it up for the next three years. The forum will submit an in-depth report every year, identifying obstacles to cross-border freedom of movement, proposing changes and presenting solutions directly to the Nordic Prime Ministers. Initially, the Forum will focus on tax and welfare issues. Over the next three years the Forum will also look into pensions, qualifications, telephone costs, rules for pensionable income, etc. The Forum's Secretariat will be based at the Nordic Council of Ministers offices in Copenhagen.
The NCM operates an information service Hello Norden providing information about everything from health insurance, pensions, tax, unemployment benefit and scholarships to educational and job opportunities for persons moving to other Nordic country (www.hallonorden.org). The new portal on taxes in the Nordic countries has been launched in 2005 (www.nordsiketax.net). Since 2003 the statistical information about commuting between Nordic countries is being collected and "commuting maps" are being developed. In 1997 the NCM established Nordregio, European centre for research, education and documentation on spatial development (www.nordregio.se).
The Nordic Council of Ministers is represented in the Executive Committee of the AEBR.
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