{"id":139642,"date":"2025-05-12T09:20:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T06:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/news\/norway-hands-over-arctic-council-intact-after-difficult-term-as-chair\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T09:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T06:20:26","slug":"norway-hands-over-arctic-council-intact-after-difficult-term-as-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/news\/norway-hands-over-arctic-council-intact-after-difficult-term-as-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway hands over Arctic Council intact after \u2018difficult\u2019 term as chair"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <p>You are unauthorized to view this page.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-login-form-wrap\">\n            \n<div class=\"mp_wrapper mp_login_form\">\n                  <!-- mp-login-form-start -->     <form name=\"mepr_loginform\" id=\"mepr_loginform\" class=\"mepr-form\" action=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/login-2\/\" method=\"post\">\n            <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_username\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n                              <label for=\"user_login\">Username<\/label>\n        <\/div>\n        <input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" value=\"\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_password\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n          <label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n          <div class=\"mp-hide-pw\">\n            <input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" value=\"\" \/>\n            <button type=\"button\" class=\"button mp-hide-pw hide-if-no-js\" data-toggle=\"0\" aria-label=\"Show password\">\n              <span class=\"dashicons dashicons-visibility\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n            <\/button>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n            <div>\n        <label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n      <div class=\"submit\">\n        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button-primary mepr-share-button \" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139642\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_process_login_form\" value=\"true\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_is_login_page\" value=\"false\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/form>\n    <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n    <div class=\"mepr-login-actions\">\n        <a\n          href=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/login-2\/?action=forgot_password\"\n          title=\"Click here to reset your password\"\n        >\n          Forgot Password        <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n\n      \n    <!-- mp-login-form-end --> \n  <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\">\nNorway is to hand over the leadership of an intergovernmental body comprising countries with territory in the Arctic after what its foreign minister called a \u201cdifficult two years\u201d, during which there have been unprecedented tensions within the group\u2019s membership related to Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine and Donald Trump\u2019s threat to seize Greenland. The Arctic Council requires consensus from all eight Arctic states \u2013 the US, Russia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland, and Sweden \u2013 for all decisions and statements.<\/p>\n<p>Despite seismic divisions among its membership being played out under the global spotlight \u2013 particularly in relation to Russia, and, since Trump\u2019s re-election, the US \u2013 the council remains active and intact. The Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, will hand over the rotating two-year chair to Greenland\u2019s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, at a meeting of the council on Monday. Denmark is due to take the presidency but in a signal that Copenhagen is attempting to reset its relations with Greenland \u2013 a former Danish colony that remains part of the Danish realm \u2013 after Trump\u2019s advances, Greenland is taking the chair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult two years to be frank because the global backdrop, the international backdrop, has made it impossible to have full business as usual,\u201d Eide told the Guardian. \u201cBut we were very eager to keep the council together, to maintain its membership and to have activity, and we are pleased to report that we achieved that.\u201d He admitted that their goals \u2013 including on the oceans, the climate crisis and people in the north \u2013 were \u201climited\u201d but said the council, formed in 1996, had managed to maintain working relations despite considerable strain since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. \u201cWe were able to keep it together,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in contrast to some other formats, nobody has left and nobody has suggested that we should not continue our work, and slowly, slowly, we were able to develop some practical cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The next two years could present even greater challenges as Trump continues to make threats about taking control of Greenland, and amid volatile relations between the US and its Arctic neighbours and changing dynamics between the US and Russia. China is also a growing presence in the region. For a long time, Eide said, the council had managed to shield itself from politics farther south, but since the invasion of Ukraine that had become impossible. In spite of the changes, he believes it is vital to maintain Arctic unity. \u201cThere is still a desire to maintain a full circumpolar Arctic council in which all Arctic states are members,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are exactly eight countries bordering the Arctic and they are all members and we would not be happy if that was fragmented into different organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Norway, like all of the Nordic countries, has dramatically changed its outlook on Russia, after relations had warmed considerably since the cold war with the two countries continuing to cooperate on the Barents Sea. The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n<p>Just last week, Norway launched its first ever national security strategy in response to what it described as \u201cthe most serious security situation our country has faced since the second world war\u201d. Eide said they did not believe threat of attack was imminent but that it was \u201cdue diligence to be prepared\u201d, especially with the world\u2019s largest concentration of nuclear weapons \u201cjust outside our window\u201d on Russia\u2019s Kola peninsula. He said violent conflict was unlikely to be triggered in the Arctic, but the region could prove critical if there were \u201ca larger international conflict between east and west\u201d. \u201cThen the Arctic is very relevant because it\u2019s the shortest route for missiles and planes and so on between Russia and North America, and that has always been very much on our radar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/12\/norway-arctic-council-leadership-ukraine-trump-greenland\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/vau-viikkokatsaus\/norway-hands-over-arctic-council-intact-after-difficult-term-as-chair\/\">Norway hands over Arctic Council intact after \u2018difficult\u2019 term as chair<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\">Vastuullisuusuutiset.fi<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[18757,1014,606,607,608],"class_list":["post-139642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-arctic-council","tag-norway","tag-vau_viikkokatsaus","tag-vauen","tag-vaufien"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}