The Nordic Forum for Security Policy organised its latest international conference with more than 200 participants from 10 countries and international organisations in Murmansk, 24 -25 January, 2003. The conference was organised in co-operation with the Murmansk State Pedagogical University - with the support of local authorities. See the programme of the conference as well as some presentations. Now, also photos related to Murmansk available.
Murmansk region gives us an opportunity for dialogue, confidence building and networking among the participating states and individuals from different organisations. The purpose is to promote discussion on the region's stability and cross border co-operation, present ongoing environmental and other projects, discuss possible needs for co-operation in the future in social sector, scientific exchange, NGO networking (encouraging new actors to participate), administration training and strengthening civil society etc. A dialogue between politicians, researchers, journalists and NGO people as well as other active individuals from Murmansk and the North West Russia, other parts of Russia (especially Moscow), the Baltic countries, the Scandinavian countries, other EU countries and from international organisations is important when we think about the relations between real life and decision making.
The main idea is to raise awareness about the Murmansk region and the North West Russia and give information for participants about real problems and current situation of the region. In this background questions concerning environment will play a very important role. Questions concerning nuclear safety and waste management cannot be passed, also exploitation of the energy resources will be discussed. The other very important purpose is to help people to find new contacts and encourage the co-operation and the linking of new networks. We hope that people-to-people contacts will activate different parts in the Murmansk and the near-by regions which will strengthen security within the region, because people are committed to those different projects. It is very important to activate especially NGOs because it will strengthen the development of the civil society and democracy.
Dialogue between various actors on enhancing security, co-operation and confidence in the Baltic Sea Region is important, especially in view of the EU-Russian relations. The EUs policy on Northern Dimension has so far concentrated on the Baltic Sea Region and we would like to broaden this discussion also to the Kola Peninsula which is a part of the region. It is very significant especially for the Northern EU countries and Norway because they share the interest of developing cross-border co-operation with Russia.
The purpose of the discussion dealing with the above-mentioned themes is to find constructive and positive solutions to these questions. We are discussing the programme all the time in various working groups (please find enclosed a very preliminary draft of the programme) in order to have included to the programme as many as possible important aspects. We have already received very positive reaction from different stakeholders towards our up-coming conference. It seems that the general interest towards this very faraway area is growing.
As follow up we will make a publication out of the conference material. The series of seminars will continue in the future around the Baltic Sea States - next time hopefully already in 2004, in Poland.