As BarentsObserver reported, defence ministers from the Nordic countries have met in Kotka, Finland, to discuss Nordic defence cooperation, ongoing crisis management operations and current security and defence challenges.
The Nordic countries are engaged in close and comprehensive defence cooperation with long traditions. In recent years, it has included three separate tracks: Nordic Armaments Cooperation (NORDAC) since 1994, Nordic Coordinated Arrangement for Military Peace Support (NORDCAPS) since 1997, and Nordic Supportive Defence Structures (NORDSUP) since 2008, a joint statement from the meeting reads.
The ministers decided to merge the previously separate arrangements into one comprehensive structure that comprises defence policy, capability development and crisis management operations. The goal since the last ministerial in November 2008 has been to create one streamlined, effectively working and yet clear and simple structure.
The aim is to establish the new structures at the next ministerial in November 2009, and to have the new structures functioning from January 2010. The new arrangement will increase cost-effectiveness, decrease overlaps that existed within the old structures and allow a consistent political steering and military coordination in all areas of cooperation.
Former Norwegian foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg earlier this year concluded in a report on Nordic defence cooperation that the five Nordic countries should strengthen security cooperation in the Arctic, BarentsObserver reported.
