The Plurality of Truth: A Critique of Research on the State and European Integration by Hanna Ojanen

Author:Hanna Ojanen [Ojanen, Hanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429802041
Google: 6zeDDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 43659288
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

4 Opting for integration: the slow retreat of Nordic cooperation

EU enlargement: a push towards a necessary reappraisal of Nordic cooperation

Codified in the Helsinki Agreement of 1962 and institutionalised in the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordic cooperation - between the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - encompasses a wide variety of activities. In the Nordic countries, it has come to assume an imprint of something self-evident; it has for decades enjoyed unanimous popularity among both Nordic politicians and the public, being even above criticism or censure. Outside Norden, in turn, the Nordic1 countries are commonly perceived and treated as a unit.

However, with the signing of the Treaty on the European Economic Area, the decisions by Finland, Norway and Sweden to apply for EU membership and, above all, the membership attained by Finland and Sweden, axiomatic Nordic cooperation has increasingly been called into question. Not only are three of the five countries now EU members; the EU has itself developed considerably from the EC Denmark joined in 1973. In this new situation, the political activities, time and resources of the member countries are increasingly concentrated on the EU. The same is true for the two countries outside the EU, Iceland and Norway, involved in the process of integration directly through the EEA and indirectly through the practical necessity of taking into account developments in the EU. The decisions and policies of the Union have nowadays a fundamental importance for the policies of the Nordic countries, whether members or not.

This new centrality of the EU for the Nordic countries implies a multiplication of the fields and forms of their participation in international collaboration, notably a new binding and supranational character of that participation. At the same time, it implies an unintentional duplication of work, as matters traditionally dealt with in Nordic institutions now appear also in the EU ones. This calls into question the appropriateness of a separate Nordic level of cooperation. Not only might Nordic cooperation now be less central and interesting for Nordic politicians; it might also be less needed. Moreover, it might become altogether impossible, either for the simple reason of feasibility, in view of the limited resources, or because of its incompatibility with the binding nature of EU membership. Therefore, a reevaluation of the achievements and nature of Nordic cooperation is imperative in order to judge whether it still involves such specific features or extends to fields that justify a purely Nordic cooperation within the larger context of European integration, or whether one should recognise that it now has definitively become a second order issue for the Nordic countries.

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