STOCKHOLM. The Stoltenberg Report, named after its Social Democrat author Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Norway, represents another step forward to a closer cooperation concerning common security arrangements in the Nordic area.
When the report was published in February by Mr. Stoltenberg, it received a lot of credit from a broad spectrum of the political scale. On the receiving end, the five Nordic Foreign Ministers said they looked forward to taking all the proposals into serious consideration during their further handling of the report this spring.
There are thirteen areas for increased joint Nordic action suggested in the text:
1. A deployment force for military and civilian international actions
2. Air patrolling over Iceland
3. A sea surveillance system
4. A sea patrol
5. A satellite for sea control
6. Arctic co-operation
7. A network against cyber attacks
8. A co-ordination team for larger rescue operations
9. A war criminals research unit
10. Common embassies where there are no Nordic presence
11. Joint efforts for military education, training, transport and equipment
12. A special amphibian unit for international operations
13. A common declaration of solidarity against external attacks
Given the fact that some of these proposals include activities related to Nato-structures, formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Finland have to handle the issues in another context than member countries. At the same time the report is one of many signs that the gap between Nato and would-be-members is closing step by step, when it comes to practical arrangements and operational standards.
This is a good sign for those forces for freedom around the Baltic Sea, who share the belief that a united view of the region’s security is all the more important at a time when Russia, through political and military aggression, has distanced itself from good relations with its neighbors.
This first phase of this program of Nordic security cooperation should in due time be followed by a second, which also includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Such a step would give some answers to the question heard in these countries about what “solidarity” really means, if things come to the worst in relations to Russia.
And that is of course why some of the Stoltenberg proposals make especially older Finnish socialists nervous. Talk is cheap, but when it comes to reality Moscow still has a saying in Nordic affairs. Just how much, we will be able to infer from the future results of this report.
For the full report:
http://eng.utanrikisraduneyti.is/media/Frettatilkynning/Nordic_report.pdf