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Arctic Yearbook 2014
humanitarian ties being implemented through research, educational, non-commercial and public
organizations have always been crucial for international integration of the Republic of Karelia.
Among the regions of the European Arctic and subarctic zone, the main partners of Karelia are:
the Norwegian county of Tromsø; the Swedish county of Västerbotten; and several Finnish
unions of communes that concluded a range of cooperation agreements with the Republic.
Bilateral forms of cooperation are well-balanced with multilateral ones like, for example, under
the framework of the Barents Euro-Arctic region (BEAR), where the Republic has actively
participated since its establishment in 1993. The unique nature of the Barents cooperation is
justified by cooperation between central and regional levels. Karelia as well as other regions of
BEAR seeks to get a maximum benefit from combining bilateral cooperation with participation
in multilateral structures of BEAR adjusting its actions, if necessary and useful, with national
governments.
The Republic of Karelia is not an Arctic region in its pure form. However, Karelia has specific
characteristics which are inherent in most of the Arctic regions: severe climate, vulnerable
environment, inaccessibility of the territory and underdeveloped transport infrastructure, low
density of population, high operating costs and expenses on infrastructure. But at the same time
there are new emerging opportunities due to the Arctic and growth of its role in everyday life of
humanity. For instance, a high transport potential of the region: the region can function as a
transit corridor to different dimension including the Arctic. At the moment the following
projects are at the stage of preparation to implementation: a project to connect the Northern Sea
Route to inner waters of Russia through Karelia; a project on development of land transport
corridors between Ural and Europe; latitudinal transport-logistic projects and more.
Proceeding from this, institutional support of program and project activities under the
framework of such structures as BEAR is extremely important for Karelia. A good example of
this process is a harmonized combination of the established structures and forms of cooperation
with the tools providing their functioning that was achieved within Euroregion Karelia.
Euroregion Karelia was established in 2000 as an international platform aimed at improvement
of cross-border ties and living standards of population. These ideas are implemented by means
of the cross-border cooperation program ENPI ‘Karelia’. For the BEAR it would be useful to
have its own source of financing as adjustment of the position of the regions is coming through
their participation in the Barents Regional Council and profile working groups. That is why
Russia, which will preside over in the Council of the BEAR for the next two years, promotes a
necessity of establishment of financing tools for BEAR projects as one of its priorities. Precisely
in this way the designed BEAR agenda will be able to get suitable financial support and fulfill
plenty of useful and mutually beneficial initiatives with specific content.
Cooperation in the North requires also synergy of programs and projects. For example,
cooperation under the framework of the BEAR can be supported by the instruments of
Northern Dimension, programs of the EU, initiatives of the Nordic Council of Ministers and
others. It is impossible to underestimate the experience of Karelia on this issue. For instance,
JSC ‘Russian Communal Services’, The government of the Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk
city administration, the Finnish Ministry of Environment, Nordic Environment Finance
Corporation (NEFCO), Nordic Investment Bank and Northern Dimension Environmental
Partnership Support Fund have joined their efforts for the implementation of the project on
Shevchuk