Change in regional Barents structures?

Regional players in Norwegian-Russian cooperation shuffle their cards. In formal Barents structures, Murmansk governor Dmitri Dmitrienko are more and more overshadowed by speaker of the regional Duma Yevgeny Nikora. From Norwegian side, County Administrator Gunnar Kjønnøy enters the stage for traditional people-to-people cooperation.

Over the last two years, speaker of the regional Duma Yevgeny Nikora has been the most active Murmansk official participating in Norwegian-Russian cross-border events. But, Nikora do not hold any official positions in the Barents Regional Council; that chair is reserved for Murmansk Governor Dmitri Dmitrienko.

In the earlier days of the Barents cooperation, the governors in Russia were elected by the people. Today they are appointed by the President. Nikora, on the other side, is elected deputy by the people and appointed by the other elected deputies to hold the chair as speaker of the regional Duma in Murmansk Oblast.

While the elected Nikora frequently appears at Barents events in northern-Norway, Dmitrienko is infamous for last-minute cancelations. The only Barents Regional Council meeting Dmitrienko has participated at since he was appointed in 2009 was the one held in Murmansk in October the same year.

On the Norwegian side, the governors are still active players in the Regional Council and other Barents cooperation projects with Russia. Pia Svensgaard, elected County Governor in Troms has for the last two years been the chair of the Regional Council. She has met more with Yevgeny Nikora than with her formal counterpart from Murmansk in the Regional Council, Dmitri Dmitrienko.

The main tool for project cooperation between the counties of northern Norway and Barents Russia is the portfolio of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. The Secretariat is owned by the counties of Nordland, Troms and Finnmark and is by that indirectly controlled by the inhabitants that each fourth year elects the regional politicians. Over the last 18 years the secretariat has granted more than 3,000 projects involving tens-of-thousands of people on both sides of the border.

Interesting to note then, that the non-elected County Administrator of Finnmark Gunnar Kjønnøy this week signed an agreement with non-elected Governor of Murmansk Dmitri Dmitrienko on a wide range of traditional people-to-people projects. Kjønnøy is appointed by the King in Council.

The agreement covers areas like art- and culture, youth and education, environment- and climate, health, agriculture and other areas. Most of these topics are also listed in the cooperation agreements both Troms and Finnmark have with Murmansk and Arkhangelsk Oblast. And most topics in the agreement overlap the grant-program of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat.

In a press-release posted on the County Administrator’s portal, Gunnar Kjønnøy says: -This agreement covers all areas of responsibility we share with Murmansk….(and)…we believe it will be important in order to realize the opportunities in the northern areas for the benefit of our inhabitants.

At the very end of the press-release, Kjønnøy writes that (the agreement) is a follow-up of the Barents Cooperation.

As the editor of BarentsObserver I thought I had a rather good overview of the different structures in the formalized and non-formal cooperation within the Barents Cooperation. But, sorry, I missed the part where County Administrator of Finnmark was served the people-to-people cooperation.

There was a debate upfront of the establishment of the Barents Cooperation in 1993 on who should be in charge of the Norwegian regional level in the cooperation. A proposal to place this responsibility in the hands of the state-appointed County Administrators was scrapped. Instead, the elected County Governors got the chairs in the Regional Council. To place this responsibility in the hands of the regions instead of controlling them from Oslo has proven to be the success story of the Barents cooperation.

To put the regions themselves in control of regional cross-border cooperation has also other places in Europe proven to be the best way to support dynamic developments.

Let’s hope the important part of the Barents Regional cooperation still will be in the hands of the elected politicians in northern Norway.

And, let’s support initiatives from regional elected politicians in Barents Russia that want to enter the Barents cooperation stage.

Thomas Nilsen
Editor - BarentsObserver.com