The Nordic dimension of the EU

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to give a general overview of Nordic regionalism and its development vis-a-vis Europe. Since the Nordic region is on the other periphery of the European continent, I wanted to analyze why such states, so distinct by their detached cultural identity from continental Europe persisted in their policy on European integration and at the same time, societies that are perceived as maintaining the fulfillment of European values of democracy and welfare. Furthermore there is the perception that the Nordic region is homogeneous, whereas in reality there is much intraregional variation originating from historic or economic roots. Thus, I thought it would be interesting to analyze such paradoxes in the Nordic region and see to what extent Nordic regional co-operation is cohesive and how it has developed parallel to the developments that have been taking place on the continent I based my thesis on the theory of core and periphery and how it has been applied within the different national, regional and international contexts and have then superimposed this on Nordic regionalism. I have thus based my study on the interaction between Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Norway; the latter two states being nonmembers of EU. The foreign policies of the Nordic states during the Cold War have been influenced by the neo-functionalist approach. For, they were frontrunners of advanced integration systems at the level of low politics but on the level of high politics and macroeconomics, national interests reigned supreme. As European integration gained momentum, through the EU' s external conditionality, the Nordic states were unwillingly drawn under the clout of the EU and so sought membership in the EU. The 1995 accession to the EU of Sweden and Finland and Austria, which was known as the EFTA enlargement has been the smoothest since. But, although a Nordic bloc did not materialize in the EU since Nordic alliances were issue-based, the Northern Dimension Initiative that emerged had established a new paradigm of relations in sub-regional co-operation.