Nordic Council

Nordic Council North
Flag of the Nordic Council
Members of the Nordic Council
Organization type	Regional political cooperation
Seat of the organs	Copenhagen , Denmark
Chair	Michael Tetzschner
Secretary General	Britt Bohlin
Member States	5
Associate members	3
observer	4th
Other official languages	Danish , Faroese , Finnish , Greenlandic , Icelandic , Norwegian , Swedish
surface	1,308,426 km²
population	26 million (2013)
Population density	20.2 inhabitants per km²
gross domestic product	1.671 billion US dollars (estimate, 2013)
Gross domestic product per inhabitant	$ 63,806 (2013 estimate)
founding	1952
Currencies	Danish crown Euro Icelandic krona Norwegian krone Swedish crown
Time zone	UTC ± 0 to UTC + 2
Subsidiary organizations	Nordic Council of Ministers
norden.org

The Nordic Council is a forum for the Nordic countries . The parliaments of the states and the autonomous regions send delegates to the council who look after the interests of their nation and are re-elected every year. The council was founded in 1952 by Denmark , Iceland , Norway and Sweden . Annual meetings have been held since then. Finland joined the Council in 1955. The work is coordinated in five specialist committees. The Nordic Council of Ministers has also existed at government level since 1971 ; the Nordic Council and the Council of Ministers have a joint secretariat in Copenhagen . The council focuses on cultural and political cooperation; military and economic cooperation mostly takes place in the context of other organizations such as NATO and the European Economic Area . The working languages ​​of the Council and the Council of Ministers are the Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.

History and tasks

In 1962, the legal basis was laid down in the Agreement on Cooperation between Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden , also known as the Helsinki Treaty .

The tasks of the Nordic Council consist in the coordination and elaboration of non-binding recommendations for the international relations of the member countries. Governments are required to report to the Nordic Council.

The organs of the Nordic Council are the General Assembly, consisting of all members of the Council; the Presidium, composed of a President (with the presidency alternating between the Nordic countries) and a number of members specified in the Nordic Council's rules of procedure; as well as the standing committees.

Since 1971 there has also been the Nordic Council of Ministers , which supports cooperation between the five states and three autonomous regions (Faroe Islands and Greenland belong to Denmark and the Åland archipelago belongs to Finland) at government level. Both institutions have a joint secretariat in Copenhagen .

As part of its cultural work, the Nordic Council awards five prestigious prizes:

• Nordic Council Literature Prize
• Nordic Council Music Prize
• Nature and Environment Prize of the Nordic Council
• Nordic Council Film Award
• Children's and Young People's Literature Prize of the Nordic Council (since 2013)

Members

The five Member States with the three autonomous areas and four observers are:

country	membership	houses of Parliament	Form of government	Year of entry	Delegate to the Council
Denmark	Full member	Folketing	Independent state	1952	16
Iceland	Full member	Althing	Independent state	1952	7th
Norway	Full member	Storting	Independent state	1952	20th
Sweden	Full member	Riksdagen	Independent state	1952	20th
Finland	Full member	Eduskunta	Independent state	1955	18th
Åland	Associate member	Lagting	Autonomous Province of Finland	1970	2
Faroe Islands	Associate member	Løgting	Autonomous Region in the Kingdom of Denmark	1970	2
Greenland	Associate member	Inatsisartut	Autonomous Region in the Kingdom of Denmark	1984	2

With the Ålands Document of 2007, the autonomous areas were given the possibility of largely equal membership in the Nordic Council.

In accordance with Article 13 of the Rules of Procedure, only the Sami Parliamentary Council , which represents the Sameting elected representatives in Finland , Norway and Sweden , has observer status and is included in the work of the Council on Sami issues .

In accordance with Section 14 of the Rules of Procedure, the Nordic Youth Council has permanent "guest" status, and the Presidium can "invite representatives of elected bodies and other persons to a meeting and grant them the right to speak" as guests. According to the council, "in recent years guests from other international and Nordic organizations have been able to participate in the debates of the sessions. Visitors from the Baltic States and northwestern Russia make the most of this opportunity. Guests with a connection to the topic under discussion will be invited to the thematic session. " The German state Schleswig-Holstein has been participating as a guest since 2016. Birte Pauls (SPD) and Jette Waldinger-Thiering ( Südschleswigscher Voters' Association ) were chosen as guests ; both are Danish from southern Schleswig .

See also

• Flag of the Nordic Council
• Nordic Passport Union , agreement to facilitate border crossing (all countries of the Nordic Council, excluding Greenland)
• West Nordic Council , an additional separate organization from Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands
• Nordic eco-label
• Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology

literature

• Stanley V. Anderson: The Nordic Council. A Study of Scandinavian Regionalism . University of Washington Press, Seattle 1967, ISBN 0-295-97865-1 .
• Barry Turner, Gunilla Nordquist: The Other European Community. Integration and Cooperation in Nordic Europe . St. Martin's Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-312-58946-8 .

Web links

• Official website of the Nordic Council (Danish, English, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DSW Report 2013 - country database , accessed on March 8, 2014
2. ↑ List of countries according to gross domestic product
3. ↑ Osmo Jussila et al. a., Political History of Finland since 1809. From the Grand Duchy to the European Union , Berlin Verlag 1999, ISBN 3-87061-833-7 , p. 308
4. ^ ^{A b} Rules of Procedure for the Nordic Council
5. ^ About the Sessions of the Nordic Council .
6. ↑ Schleswig-Holstein uses its observer status in the Nordic Council for the first time ( memento of August 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), Schleswig-Holstein State Parliament, November 1, 2016
7. ↑ Election of observing members in the Nordic Council (18/4839) , Schleswig-Holstein State Parliament, November 3, 2016