Seretariat leader Rune Rafaelsen has been working with cross-border cooperation with Russia for the past 30 years and has seen Norwegian-Russian relations developing in the whole Post-Soviet period.
”The borderlands between the countries have developed from being dead ends to becoming points for interaction, dialogue and practical cooperation. This must be allowed to continue”, Rafaelsen says.
He underlines that the countries in the region managed to keep channels of interaction open also in previous time of tensions. Even during the Soviet period, Norwegians and Russians managed to engage in a certain level of cooperation, within fields like sports, inter-municipal projects as well as economy.
According to Rafaelsen, cross-border people-to-people cooperation is now a vital tool for the preservation of a necessary level of contact. ”In times of trouble between the capitals, this is a backdoor for continued interaction”, the Secretariat leader underlines. ”Cross-border channels between regular people must be kept open”, he adds.
In the Barents Region, cross-border cooperation has over the last 20 years developed postively within the frames of the Barents Cooperation. The cooperation has primarily unfolded on level of local and regional authorities and civil society groups, but has also helped build trust in inter-state relations and neighborhood affairs. For example, the Norwegian government to a great extent acknowledges the key role of the Barents Cooperation in the successful 2011 Norwegian-Russian delimitation of the Barents Sea.
The Barents Region includes the northern parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway, and the northwestern part of Russia.
”With cross-border cooperation we build trust on the level of the local man and woman in the border towns but also between governments and state officials!” Rune Rafaelsen says.
