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Norway established new High North expert group

The Norwegian Government has established a group of experts on High North issues in a bid to develop new national strategies for the region.

Location

The new expert group was formalized during Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s visit to the Arctic city of Tromsø last week. The trip was held immediately after the historical meetings with Russian President Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Oslo last week.

Read also: Medvedev’s historical visit to Oslo

Støre during his High North trip also visited Kirkenes, the Norwegian town located only few kilometers from the border to Russia.

The new expert group includes 18 representatives from business, politics, culture and science. Frode Mellemvik, leader of the High North Centre of Business and Management in Bodø, will head the group, whose members all come from the northern parts of the country. The group has a mandate period of two years.

-The High North policies affect us all, but first of all the ones who live in the north. The region must [therefore] itself be part of developing the process, Støre said in his presentation of the initiative.

-New opportunities open up in the cooperation with Russia and all the Arctic region. We must study how to use these opportunities to prepare the ground new growth in the north, Støre added.

The group is to be a “dialogue partner” for the Foreign Minister in the further development of the government’s High North policy, a press release from the ministry reads. Cooperation initiatives in the Barents Region, with Nordic partners, the EU and the coastal states in the Arctic are to be the main focus of the group.

The High North priorities of the Norwegian Government is based on High North Strategy from 2006 and the follow-up document “New Building Blocks in the North” from 2009.