Twenty shades of Barents

Øyvind Nordsletten - The Diplomat: "As much important as meetings and workshops - ie the more institutionalized cooperation – has the atmosphere, "The Barents Spirit", created a sense of the community and cooperation across borders in the north that we are experiencing today. The big headline of the achievements of these 20 years can be described in two words - normalization and humanization. This is also the way to go for in the future."

Rune Rafaelsen - The Enthusiast: "The success of the Barents cooperation comes from participation and involvement "on the ground" within the Barents Region. The further development requires that national politicians strengthen the local and regional involvement. This means that all barriers to civic participation and influence must be removed. Visa regime should be removed. Cooperation must be based on mutual democratic values that facilitate sustainable economic development based on the terms of the people who live in the Barents Region."

Andrey Shalyov - The Bridge builder: "Barents cooperation is still very fragile political construction. Surprisingly, today in anticipation of the second Kirkenes Declaration it seems even more vulnerable than 20 years ago. After so many years of interaction across the borders we started to enjoy a slight sweet feeling of new regional identity. And because of that we better understand what we can lose if some of our top-politicians would suddenly find in the Barents cooperation the signs of “regional separatism” or “threat to national sovereignty. The fact is that two levels of Barents cooperation, - central and regional, - were developing in different velocity. We observe relatively modest interaction on the central level of cooperation on the background of rich and diversified “people-to-people” project activity in the regions. This situation reflects the dominating model of interrelations between the capitals and the regions but we need to move forward in order to make it less vertical, better balanced and more transparent."

Amund Trellevik - The Journalist: "The demand for accreditation for journalists must be removed. While the Barents cooperation is improving in many areas, foreign journalists who frequently travel to Northwest-Russia to work there experience that getting the necessary permits from Russian authorities gets harder and harder."

Jens Stoltenberg - The Prime Minister: "The region is now attracting growing international attention, partly due to its great potential for the development of natural resources. We share a common interest in further enhancing this cooperation at every level. On the occasion of the anniversary, the Barents partners will adopt a new declaration that will address future opportunities and challenges."

Anna Kireeva - The Ecologist: "As it's a difficult time for NGOs in Russia, I believe it is very important for environmental NGOs to get a status of observers in all Norwegian-Russian projects and negotiations, connected with environmental issues."

Claus Bergersen - The Hockey player: "I want to see construction of more modern sports facilities in the Barents Region. We have 25 years of sports exchanges with Russia. Now is the time for upgrading and new construction."

Trine Hamran - The Reporter: "We should go on stimulating freedom of speech and civil society, to ensure that the people of the North, we who actually live here, have a say when it comes to the development of our own region. That also means telling the stories about who we are, and why we are here. This is not always compatible with the perspectives of the big industry."

Urban Wråkberg - The Researcher: "Based on our good experiences of Barents collaboration so far, and on some less successful aspects of the so called "Europeanization" programmes which the EU has projected on several of its neighboring states, future Barents collaboration will do best in supporting cross-border initiatives based on entrepreneurial individuals applying for to build activities based on, and expanding, the cross-border connections of their professional networks. Any counter-funding demands in Barents grants should be avoided also in the future as EU experiences again tell us that this tends to limit the number of active operators to already well funded and flexible expert fundraisers. One needs to work more with public institutions in the various countries and temper reform ideas directed abroad based on overblow enthusiasm for the ways we do things in our own country."

Morten Brugård - The Young Entrepreneur Creator: "Over the past 20 years cooperation between people have been in focus. I hope that we may see a shift into entrepreneurial cooperation. It’s important to understand that doing business includes risk, and through years of cross border cooperation we have reduced these risks and are now ready to utilize the full potential in the region. We will look from east to west, rather than north to south."