Norway, Finland seek to mend Russian relations
NATO member Norway as well as Finland seem eager to resume trade with Russia for the first time since the EU imposed sanctions following the Crimean referendum to join Russia.
Published: December 2, 2016, 11:09 am
Three Norwegian ministers met their Russian counterpart for natural resources this week. It is the first meeting in two years, where both sides agreed to share seismic data for Arctic oil and gas exploration in the Barents Sea.
Beyond data sharing, Sergei Donskoi, Russia’s natural resources minister, visited Oslo this week for future talks on allocating potential oil or gas discoveries that could straddle the border.
Monica Maeland, Norway’s trade minister, told the London Financial Times: “We want good neighbourly relations with Russia, especially in the north, where we have a common border and common interests.”
Finnish trade minister Kai Mykkänen declared that his country too would resume the trade and economic relations with Russia, stopped in 2014.
Finland is not part of the NATO alliance, and has long had cordial relations with Russia. The two states’ presidents meet annually and foreign ministers also meet regularly.
The Finnish-Russian trade commission co-chaired by the Russian deputy prime minister and the Finnish trade minister, met, while Juha Sipila, the Finnish prime minister, is due to meet his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev next week.
The governments of Norway and Finland denied that their contacts with Russia underminded European unity over sanctions on Russia, but certain parties disagreed.
“We have a 1 300km common border with Russia so we have many issues that have to be dealt with from time to time. But it’s in our interests that the west stays united over breaches of international law. These two things are not in contradiction,” Kai Mykkänen, Finland’s trade minister, told the Financial Times.
Both ministries denied that EU sanctions on Russia were discussed in the meetings. But Indra Overland, Russian expert at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, told the FT the high-level meetings signal a change in relations with Russia.
“It is the clear beginning of a slippage on sanctions. It’s quite a big beginning. It doesn’t affect the sanctions yet but the will to continue is slipping,” added Overland.
Mykkänen downplayed the revival of the trade commission. “It’s nothing so special and I wouldn’t overstate the meaning of this,” Mykkänen said.
Both the Finnish and Norwegian ministers agreed to further meetings, with Maeland due to visit Moscow in April 2017 while the Finnish-Russian commission is set to reconvene next year.
In addition, French Minister of Finance Michel Sapin is currrently in Moscow. His visit symbolizes the desire of Paris to expand trade relations with Moscow.
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