compared to population the Nordic countries are some of the world’s most productive and successful economies. And together the collective economy is about the size of that of India or Russia at the 10th largest economy. (From Wikipedias IMF numbers: Nordic countries: 1,436,787 million US$ GDP; the Baltics: 78,339; together = 1,515,126) At the same time the economies are all very open and dependent on trade, so a representation would seem like an advantageous position. Both for the Nordic countries and for the world.
Just out of idle curiosity, exactly which Nordic states are involved? And, semi-related, is there any serious effort to get them all on the Euro or, if not, a more regional “Scandollar”?
As for the specific topic at hand, it might be easier to just admit them as separate members and forestall the potential future conflict where, for example, Sweden wants something that Norway does not.
The EU already has its own seat, plus seats for four members individually. A Nordic/Baltic seat would put yet another level of “double membership” for European countries, which I suspect would make it seem to be a European dominated club to members from other countries, especially non-western ones.
(plus, you’d either have to change the name and have to change all the stationary, or kick an existing member.)
Excepting Iceland.
Further, Norway is already part of the EEA which goes the distance in term of homogenizing the internal EU market anyway. (Norway has only vetoed one piece of EU legislation. Ridiculously, we chose the postal reforms instead of the Data Directive, but there you are.)
I don’t mean the above to in any way support Norway trying to ingratiate or bully itself into the G20. It’s been made plain before that we could and the lump we’d have to swallow would be EU membership with default conditions. Støre - who I otherwise admire - is merely trying to sidestep this.
Yes, we are currently co-operating more closely with Denmark and Sweden than we ever have before and could form a bloc with appreciable if not globally significant impact. This does not entitle us to anything. More than anything, I perceive this as strategic positioning for future expansion considerations.
It looks to me like serious slight-of-hand to say that the Nordic countries together are the tenth largest economy, if they’re compared to other nations singly. If we’re grouping countries together 5 at a time, I’m guessing I could make a hundred or more such groups that have a collective economy greater than the collective economy of the Nordic countries. You’re comparing crates of apples to individual apples.
This is what you get when you bust up the Kalmar Union. Hey, if you guys want to form a single country no one is stopping you. Then we could stop pretending that Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are separate languages.
I imagine the Nordic Council would be the administrative body. It consists of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Iceland (& Faroe Islands, Greenland, Ålandsøerne) The Baltics are Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. The currency in use by all the nations except Finland is the kroner. So that would most naturally be the name a proposed common currency. I have heard nothing of that sort though.
Then it should be renamed G30 or something. Sweden is the largest economy, but only the 22nd largest in the world.
& The Faroe Islands, & Greenland (Greenland is the only ex-EU member)
But let’s have a little perspective here. Iceland certainly is a country, but it has, what… 300,000 people? In the whole country. California alone has a dozen cities with that many people or more. As a state, we have more than 100x that much.
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