"Russian tsars gave Finland statehood"
A coalition of northern European countries could fruitfully cooperate with us.A party has appeared in Iceland that has set a goal to seek the unification of their country with Norway. So we can state that, against the background of centrifugal tendencies, there are centripetal forces in Europe.
Recognizing the crisis of the European Union, some analysts do not exclude the emergence of new economic associations that are alternative to the EU.
It is not the first time in the expert community that the topic of the Northern Union is raised, where the Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom could enter. Such an organization could well establish trade cooperation with Russia, because with all the differences, there are quite a few common economic features between our countries.
Andrei Parshev, author of the book “Why Russia is not America,” assesses the likelihood of the emergence of the Northern Union, the unification of Iceland and Norway, as well as the possibility of cooperation between our country and the coalition of the northern countries of Europe.
The steps to bring together Iceland and Norway are well founded.
- We are accustomed to the current political configuration of northern Europe, when Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden exist separately from each other. But we must remember and know that this situation has developed not so long ago. For example, Sweden and Norway were divided into two countries as a result of a referendum only at the beginning of the 20th century. Just recently, just over a hundred years have passed. And if we dive into history, then it turns out that Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the eastern part of England, once called the Danish Law Area, were once part of the Great Danish Power.
It is believed that Icelanders initially consisted of those people who fled from the autocracy of the Norwegian king. He fought with the nobility and the disgruntled Norwegians boarded the ships and sailed to Iceland. That is, these are closely related peoples, languages are not very different, there are no problems with understanding.
They have a single national epic and mythology, debating the question of whether the Vikings were: Norwegians or Icelanders. In addition, their economies are similar in their type of economy. The Norwegians and Icelanders have developed fishing, animal husbandry is also similar and quite specific. It is clear that it is beneficial for them to conduct a common foreign economic policy in comparison with the competition among themselves in the market of similar products. So the steps for cultural and economic rapprochement are quite reasonable.
The crisis in Iceland occurred under the influence of the advice of "progressive" liberal economists
Iceland is a small country, and they recently had a bank crash under the influence of the advice of "progressive" liberal economists. They get out of this collapse with great difficulty, and their cousins (if not brothers) of the Norwegians have oil and gas dope. This is also an important incentive for rapprochement.
As for the prospects of the Northern Union, in a sense it already exists, although there are differences between the northern countries that seem to us not so important. Iceland is a republic, and the rest of Scandinavian countries are monarchies, a number of differences stem from this.
Separately, I want to say about Finland. Formally, this is not a Scandinavian country, but Swedish is still one of the state languages. Finland has been a province of Sweden for a very long time. That is, conditionally, it can still be called a Scandinavian country. But it gained independence after the collapse of the Russian Empire, and the autonomy, statehood was presented to it by the Russian tsars.
With this in mind, we can talk about the prospects for fruitful cooperation between Russia and the coalition of the northern countries of Europe, if such a Union ever emerges.
- Andrey Parshev
- http://www.km.ru/world/2014/08/17/evropeiskii-soyuz-es/747333-aparshev-russkie-tsari-podarili-finlyandii-gosudarstven
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