Norwegian – Russian Partnership in Business, Education and Research

Opening session: Visions for cooperation

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State Secretary, Governors, Chairs, distinguished guests and good friends,

First of all, let me extent my warmest congratulations to the partners who are celebrating 25 years of successful cooperation. Through these 25 years you have provided students with new and exciting opportunities. During 25 years you have built lasting partnerships between people, businesses and universities in Russia and Norway. These partnerships are not only important for the County of Nordland and the Leningrad region. Your cooperation is also a vital element in building close and neighborly the relations between Norway and Russia as nations.

Often when we speak about cooperation between countries, we tend to look at the capitals and the national level. The national level is significant for the relationship between countries. However, regional and local cross-border cooperation involves more people, is often more concrete, and no less important. In my view it complements the national level in many ways.

The regional and local level is even more essential when we talk about neighboring countries like Russia and Norway. This is something we have clearly seen in the Barents cooperation, and how important the regional cooperation has been in order to establish and maintain cross border relations – people to people – between our two countries.

Norway and Russia have a long history of cooperation. The cooperation has been especially important for the people living in the Northern parts of our countries. During the last 10-15 years the opportunities which lie in the North have become more evident to the rest of our countrymen as well. (We who live in the North have of course known this for a long time.) Rich natural resources and the melting of the ice have made the global community look to the North in general and to the Arctic in particular.

This new national and international attention must be taken into account when we look at the work you have been doing for 25 years, and discussing how it can developed further in the years to come.

Chairs,
At a national level the cooperation between Russia and Norway has been reduced since the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s actions in Eastern-Ukraine. Despite the fact that Norway disagrees with Russia’s actions, the Arctic must be kept as a zone of peace and international cooperation.

In times when the cooperation on a national level is reduced, I believe it becomes even more important to continue the dialogue and cooperation on a regional and local level. The everyday contact and cooperation between universities, between schools and between NGOs in our countries should continue as before. We must keep channels open. As neighbours in the North we are continuing the cross border cooperation in a number of areas, as for instance the Coast Guard cooperation in order to secure safety at sea.

This year we are also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the successful cooperation in the Arctic Council. I am pleased to note that both the US Arctic Council Chairmanship and the other Arctic states so clearly have stated that they will prevent spillover effects from disagreements elsewhere in the world to the Arctic cooperation.

Chairs,
Let us move on to the more concrete parts of your cooperation and why we are here celebrating. Let me start with student exchange programs.

I will confess immediately: I am a big fan of exchange programs, especially between countries in the North. Russia and Norway are countries with strong Northern identities. Consequently, student exchange is even more beneficial since we share many of the same values as well as some of the same challenges. I believe student exchange strengthens the Northern identity and shared community of the students, who share and learn new skills which are directly relevant for their further studies and work in their home communities. Student exchange programs produce networks that become new partnerships in business and in life, and are an efficient use of northern education and training capacity resources.

Student exchange is also an important factor for increasing innovation and ensuring common social, economic, and environmental high standards in doing business and accessing natural resources. We need to find ways to further stimulate Arctic student exchange, continue to learn from each other and together promote prosperous development in our countries.

The Arctic parliamentary cooperation wants to lift cooperation in education and research higher on the Arctic agenda. We have proposed to establish a Circumpolar Mobility Program, and believe our governments must set aside more money to encourage and facilitate student exchange between the Arctic countries.

Friends,
The North is an area of new opportunities, including economic opportunities. It must be an area of opportunities for the people who live there. We must avoid a colonization from the south, if I should put it bluntly, where people come from the outside, take out the resources and ship them south, with little or no gain for the local populations.

The Arctic parliamentary cooperation strongly supports capacity building, particularly through education, to ensure that local communities in the North will benefit from economic development. It is, however, vital that capacity development is rooted in, and relevant for, the people living in the Region, and that there is a link between the economic opportunities and the education system.

Knowledge and technological innovations are keys to a prosperous and sustainable development in the Arctic.

We need new technology to be able to give northern societies access to health care, energy and more. Innovation in the Arctic must be an area of Arctic cooperation that links universities, the business sector and political society with the know-hows and capabilities of the local populations. We need to address Arctic innovation beyond the development of natural resources. What will the people living in the Arctic live off in addition to its rich resources? How do we stimulate innovation in the Arctic which addresses the needs of future Arctic societies? There are so many things we need to solve, and I believe the solutions are found when we develop partnerships like the ones we are celebrating here today.

Dear friends,
25 years of cooperation show that you are serious. It shows you are a partner who will not run away when you meet difficulties. During 25 years you build a trust, and trust is the most important basis for the next 25 years.

I look forward to the next 25 years and to our continued efforts in maintaining a vital and prosperous North. I wish you all the best.

Thank you for your attention.