Region building

Listen to an account of the Danish decolonisation of Greenland in either English or Danish! This podcast is part of a series where existing material on nordics.info is read out in assorted languages by colleagues and friends. Great for learning Danish or English. / Lyt til historien om Grøndlands afkolonialisering på engelsk eller dansk! Denne podcast er del af en serie af podcasts, hvor materiale fra nordics.info bliver læst højt på forskellige sprog af venner og kollegaer.

Denmark has been a cautious participant of European supranational integration since the Second World War, evaluating the pros and cons of integration, and making the decision to ‘opt in’ when there were benefits. The driving force behind Denmark's accession to the EEC was the desire to become part of an open European economy, rather than support for federalism. Key parliamentary decisions on European integration were made by consensus between the main political parties, regardless of the coalition in power.

Are the Nordic countries really that similar to one another? - Or different from the rest of the world? Is discussion of 'the Nordics' simply a…

Immediately before and after the Nordic Council was founded in 1952, there was much debate over what form cooperation should take amongst the Scandinavian/Nordic countries, primarily with respect to the economy and defence. Norway’s attempts to support a customs union/common market in 1947, 1950 and 1954 belied its repeated blocking of initiatives for closer cooperation. The Labour government’s pro-Nordic impulses were blocked by international as well as domestic concerns. The creation of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) in 1959/60 created a way out of the conundrum.

The NORDEK plan (so called due to the Swedish name for Nordic Economic Union (NORDiskt EKonomiskt samarbete)) grew out of a Danish initiative to create a Nordic common market. The plan attracted much attention in the years 1967-70. It was the last serious attempt to create a comprehensive Nordic political and economic organisation of cooperation. Disagreement between, amongst others, the Danish and the Finnish about what sort of cooperation there would be with the EEC led to difficulties. After many years of sluggish negotiations, plans were finally given up when the opportunity for Denmark and Norway to join the EEC arose in 1969-70. NORDEK was therefore never realised.

Iceland was a largely uninhabited island in the northern Atlantic Ocean where Norsemen settled around 870. It began as a ‘free state’ but became a Norwegian province in the years 1262/64. As a dependency of Norway, Iceland came under the Danish-Norwegian Crown in 1380 and was in reality a Danish dependency from 1660. During the course of the 19th century, Icelanders strove for emancipation from Denmark, and gradually the country achieved greater independence.

As small, open economies, all the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Island, Norway and Sweden) have been well integrated in the regional and international economy. There have been moves to further intra-Nordic integration, such as, the NORDEK project in 1960s and the establishment of Nordic companies. Each of the five countries has had differing economic relationships with Europe, with Finland currently being the only country to have adopted the euro, and Iceland and Norway the only Nordic countries not to have become members of the EU.

Read a potted history of Iceland from the Vikings to today.

The Danes voted on membership of the EEC on 2nd October 1972, and two days later, the French newspaper Le Monde published an article in which the referendum and the Danes' opinions on the EEC were analysed. In the referendum, 63,7 % of Danes voted yes to membership and Denmark became a member of the EEC on 1st January 1973.

Over a period of more than 70 years, the Nordic countries have worked together to produce comparative statistics on social and health issues with the goal of informing researchers, public officials, politicians and the public. The collection of statistical data using internationally recognised standards combined with expert knowledge on national regulations makes the continued production of comparative statistics in the two committees, one on social welfare (NOSOSCO) and one on health (NOMESCO), a valuable resource. While some argue that the committees are less important now that European and international statistics are readily available, others consider that there is continued relevance in the production of detailed, comparative Nordic statistics by experts who have extensive knowledge of the legislative background and Nordic context.