Ministerial meeting handling future guidelines for Northern Dimension
Press release 363/2005
18 November, 2005
Future guidelines for the Northern Dimension will be laid down in the Ministerial Meeting to be held in Brussels on 21 November. The meeting will be chaired by Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom Jack Straw. Finland will be represented by Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. The participants will include a number of other foreign ministers from the EU states, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Störe and Icelandic Foreign Minister Geir Haarde. There will also be international financial institutions participating in the meeting.
The goal of the meeting is to accept a specific guidelines document. This document would provide the basic framework for development of the Northern Dimension.
The key changes in the new Northern Dimension programme as compared to the current one will be:
* The Northern Dimension will become a part of common policy between the EU, Russia, Norway, and Iceland. The basic document will be agreed upon together, and as a result, the status of Russia, Norway and Iceland will change from partners to full parties.
* In the northern region, the Northern Dimension will be made part of the implementation of the four ‘common spaces’ the EU and Russia have agreed upon, without forgetting the other specific questions of the region.
* Transition from three-year actions plans to a declaration and a framework document, which will remain valid until further notice.
Tentatively, the following are considered to belong among the sectors of cooperation: economic cooperation; freedom, security and justice; international security as concerns civil crisis management; research, education and culture; environment, nuclear safety and natural resources; social and health issues. Of these, the four first-mentioned represent the sectors of the four ‘common spaces’ agreed upon between the EU and Russia, and the last two come from the current Northern Dimension action plan.
On the basis of the guidelines document, the Commission will draft its proposal for the framework document of Northern Dimension, which will include the objectives for action within each of the sectors, and the necessary structures.
The final revision and approval of the framework document and a short separate declaration will probably take place during Finland’s EU Presidency. The documents will be handled, for instance, in the Senior Officials Meeting of the Northern Dimension to be organized in Finland in September 2006. These documents will be given the final approval in autumn 2006 in a high-level meeting between the EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland. The present Northern Dimension action plan will expire at the end of the year 2006.
Additional information: Director Maimo Henriksson, Unit for the Northern Dimension, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, tel. +358 40 527 3821, and Counsellor Marja-Leena Vuorenpää, tel. +358 40 861 7135