The working group on tourism will be established under the Swedish chairmanship of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt took over the charimanship for the Barents Coucil from Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and will be the chair for the coming two years.
Also Norway’s Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, highlighted the work for making the visa- and border crossing regim easier. – We have already achived a lot in this fields, and will continue our work with Moscow make it easier for people and trafic in the areas near the Norwegian-Russian border, Støre said at the press-conference after the Barents Council meeting in Murmansk Thursday morning.
The work to eastablish a so-called borderzone visa free travel in the areas of Kirkenes and Pechenga was initiated after Støre and Lavrov’s joint visit to the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes in June last year.
- A lot has happened since the establishment of the Barents Region. In 1990, some 3,000 people crossed the Norwegian-Russian border in the north, last year it was more than 100,000 border-crossings, Støre said at the press-conference.
Wednesday, after meetings with the Barents Secretariats in Kirkenes, Jonas Gahr Støre and Carl Bildt crossed the border from Norway to Russia in the north and traveled by bus to Murmansk.
