The Nordic countries have signed an agreement to establish a common Nordic air defence. This will be the first step towards the construction of the joint Nordic armed forces, and consequently to the creation of a common Nordic state, whose construction (without undue publicity) has lasted for a long time and is now entering the final phase.
Nordic integration has a 1000-year tradition
Christianity and the state method of organizing social life to Scandinavia came from Byzantium through Poland. This was done through the Byzantine Empress of Teofania and her ‘teaching’, St.
By the end of the 10th century, the Norse peoples were organized into kingdoms. Earlier, Nordics were known to the planet for respective centuries as Vikings, merchants and robbers who traded, plundered and conquered lands, besides outside the Nordic region. England, Kaganat Chazarski on the Black Sea, Byzantium and arabian countries occupied a peculiar place in the conquests of the Vikings.
Christianity yet won in the Nordic countries. chaotic conquests, pagan worship of human sacrifices, and the trade in Slavic slaves have come to an end. The Vikings besides created their states outside Scandinavia; Normandy, Sicily and Russia.
However, wars continued, including wars between the kingdoms of the North.
There was a request for peace through unification. The first union of the Nordic kingdoms was made by the grandson of the Polish ruler, Lives I, boy of St. However, this was not permanent union.
The more permanent Calamari Union from 1397 to 1521 united the Norse kingdoms in a stronger way. Queen Margaret I was regent in Norway and Denmark, and in 1389 she was besides elected regent in Sweden.
Relative Margaret, Erik of Pomerania, was crowned as the Norse king in Kalmar on 17 June 1397. The Kalmar Union operated in practice until 1521 erstwhile Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden.
Two Kingdoms
For the next 300 years, the Nordic countries were divided into 2 kingdoms. The Swedish Kingdom besides included Finland and then a number of another areas on our side of the Baltic Sea. The Danish kingdom included Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Both kingdoms fought each another in many wars.
At first the Danish monarchy was stronger, but during the 30 Years' War in the 17th century the Swedish kingdom of the Vases gained the advantage. The North War in the early 18th century caused a weakening of the power of Sweden. It is Russia and grown as cancer on the body of the Republic of Prussia became fresh powers on the Baltic.
With the Napoleonic wars, there were changes in the North region. Russia got Finland after defeating Napoleon. The Russian Tsar became the large prince of Finland. Denmark had to cede Norway for Sweden under peace in Kilonia. Norway entered a union with Sweden from 1814 to 1905.
Monetary Union
Sweden, Denmark and Norway had already established a Scandinavian Monetary Union in 1875, which formally lasted until 1924. In practice, it was abolished during planet War I. By then the Nordic monetary unit – the crown in individual countries no longer had the same value in relation to gold.
In 1905, the union between Sweden and Norway ended and Norway became independent. Finland, as a consequence of the revolution in Russia, gained independency on 6 December 1917. Iceland besides gained a large degree of autonomy the following year, but by 1944 Iceland remained part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
There was a conflict between Sweden and Finland over the Åland Islands. The League of Nations granted the Åland Islands of Finland. As early as the late 19th century, there was norse cooperation at the bottom level among many organizations. Cooperation between societies remains the basis for formal cooperation between the Nordic countries.
The Nordic Association was founded in Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1919 and then in Iceland in 1922 and Finland in 1924. Since then, the association has been a driving force for strengthening Nordic cooperation. Partner cities are a concrete example of cooperation. In 1939, Thisted in Denmark was the first city to establish a merger with Uddevalla in Sweden, followed by cooperation between a number of another cities.
Social Democrats unite Nordic countries
Nordic social democrats and their respective trade unions were already organized before planet War II on the SAMAK Cooperation Committee. At the first post-war gathering of SAMAK in July 1945 in Stockholm, among the politicians present at the summit, there was an agreement to make a common Nordic policy in many areas.
The Swedish abroad Minister Östen Undén proposed the establishment of a Scandinavian Defence Federation in May 1948. However, negotiations on the defence union broke down in early 1949. Norway and Sweden were besides far apart.
NATO and the Nordic Council
Denmark, Iceland and Norway decided to join NATO while Sweden remained neutral. However, the Nordic integration process continued. The Nordic Council was formed in 1952 by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Finland, which at the time was heavy influenced by the neighbourhood with the russian Union, did not join until 1955 erstwhile the fresh leader Khrushchev announced the thaw in the Cold War.
In the 1950s there were plans to make a Nordic Free Trade Area and a Nordic Customs Union, but this ended with the decision of Sweden, Norway and Denmark to join the EFTA Free Trade Organisation since 1960. Finland joined the EFTA in 1961. Iceland became an EFTA associate in 1970 and for a short time all Nordic countries were part of the same free trade zone.
EEC
In July 1961, Britain decided to apply for EEC membership. Denmark and Norway besides applied for membership during this period. The issue of EEC membership was blocked by president de Gaulle's opposition to bringing Britain back. Negotiations on admission were halted in January 1963.
With the changed situation, the pursuit of a permanent treaty on Nordic cooperation has been accelerated. It was yet adopted in Helsinki on 23 March 1962 and so this "Nordic Constitution" is called the Helsinki Agreement.
From 1968 to early 1970, intensive negotiations were held on Nordic economical cooperation under the alleged Nordek. This was stuck in a dead end due to the fact that Finland felt that it could not participate due to close relations with the russian Union. However, this failure led to another initiative: the Nordic Council of Ministers was established in 1971.
As of 1 January 1973, 1 Nordic country was a associate in the EEC, namely Denmark, while the another 4 were outside. The Nordic Council of Ministers was set up precisely to keep Nordic cooperation in this hard situation. Since the 1970s, the unification of legal systems, taxation systems, method standards, police cooperation, education, transport, telecommunications etc. of the Nordic countries has been intensified.
Anker Jørgensen, who was Prime Minister of Denmark for most of the time until 1982, wrote in his MP to print his memoirs from the Prime Minister's period that Denmark had not forgotten Nordic cooperation due to European cooperation: "On the contrary, we tried, as another Nordic countries wanted, to be bridge builders between Scandinavia and Europe."
In July and August 1975, Finland hosted an crucial OSCE Conference on safety and Cooperation in Europe. These decisions were most likely taken at erstwhile as “nice words”, but the human rights chapter in the Helsinki Declaration helped to sow the “seed of freedom” in east Europe.
The fall of communism and the demolition of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 fundamentally changed the political map of northern Europe. In late 1989, democracy was introduced in Poland and the GDR. In 1990, the second was reunited with West Germany. The russian Union broke up in 1991.
Even before that, the Baltic countries tried to mark greater independence, but were now restored as independent states that they were during the interwar period. In 1986, I organized a historical and information conference in Oslo on the Baltic countries. The Nordic countries have in fact made contact before independence, including in order to establish information offices of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 3 countries.
A referendum on EU membership was held in Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1994. The voters in Finland and Sweden decided to say yes, while the majority of Norwegian voters voted no for the second time. Sweden and Finland, together with Austria, became EU members from 1 January 1995.
In October 1999, 5 Nordic countries inaugurated a joint embassy complex in Berlin, which one more time became the capital of Germany. With the decision from Bonn, close the border with France, the centre of gravity in Germany moved to the northeast.
In 2007, an yearly Parliamentary Conference of the Baltic Sea, BSPC, was held in the Bundestag, Berlin, where the Nordic Council has been peculiarly active since the first conference in January 1991 – six months before the dissolution of the russian Union.
The full Baltic Sea region, with the exception of the Russian areas around Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad, is now part of the EU. Nordic-Baltic contacts are inactive peculiarly close, but the future will show where Nordic cooperation will develop.
Military agreement first step towards union
The military agreement between Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland is not only a consequence of Russia's perception of the increased threat. According to Danish Air Defence Chief Jan Dam, this initiative is related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.
– Our combined fleet can be compared to the fleet of a large European country," Reuters said on Friday. The agreement was signed in March 2023 at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany by air defence chiefs from 4 Nordic countries, including Rolf Folland, the head of the Norwegian Air Force.
General James B. Hecker, who is at the same time the commander of the US Air Defence Force in Europe, was besides present.
The Nordic Empire
The Nordic countries realize that the coming fresh times make a threat to the safety and well-being of their societies. It is besides crucial to preserve cultural identity.
The construction of the Nordic state is simply a method of uncovering its way in a globalised but at the same time conflicted world, a method of seeking a political balance between the losing hegemonist position of America, the European Union, increasingly dominated by Germany, weakening Russia and rising on a fresh hegemon in the planet of China.
Bogdan Kulas
