A Stronger North? Developing Nordic cooperation on foreign and security policy

FIIA conducted a one-year research project entitled: A Stronger North? – Developing Nordic cooperation on foreign and security policy. The project was part of the implementation of the Finnish Government Plan for Analysis, Assessment and Research activities for 2017. The project examined possibilities for deepening Nordic cooperation in the field of foreign and security policy and it drew conclusions and made policy recommendations for the Finnish government. The project’s findings were published in FIIA Report format and the summary of key findings was delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office in March 2018.

The focus of the project was to assess existing practices, map out gaps and propose recommendations for deepening Nordic cooperation on foreign and security policy. The current state of cooperation was viewed from a broad perspective, including official inter-governmental and inter-parliamentary forums, the Nordic Council and Council of Ministers as well as cooperative structures in security and defence such as NORDEFCO. Also established forms of Nordic cooperation as a part of wider multilateral contexts such as the EU, NATO and the UN were discussed. In a multilateral context the emphasis was on how to work more efficiently as a region in a larger institutional framework.

The research was conducted by a group of Nordic researchers with an experienced background on foreign policy and security analysis. The research project was managed and coordinated by the FIIA. The project was led by Director Teija Tiilikainen and supervised by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland; the project was coordinated by Research Fellow Eeva Innola and also FIIA research fellow Tuomas Iso-Markku was involved in the project. The overall project period was 1 March 2017 – 31 March 2018.