Autor: HALLDÓR ÁSGRÍMSSON, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers and former Icelandic Prime Minister
published: 21.04.2009 @euobserver.com


EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - It is a fact that climate change poses a threat to food supplies, particularly in poorer parts of the world. We are at the same time dependent on rice, maize and other subsistence crops for our very survival, crops that are vulnerable to, amongst other things, desertification and flooding.

It is the responsibility of the developed world to combat this trend. The Nordic countries have put in place a range of measures to tackle the situation, including the creation of a global seed bank and efforts to promote similar gene banks in Africa and Central Asia.

One key Nordic objective is to safeguard global food supplies through the conservation and sustainable utilisation of genetic resources in agriculture.

The Nordic countries benefit from one of the most comprehensive systems of regional partnership anywhere in the world. Official co-operation between Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the autonomous territories of Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, dates back to the 1950s. The Nordic Council of Ministers serves as the official body for inter-governmental co-operation and the Nordic Council as the official body for inter-parliamentary co-operation. The initial focus was on integration – the Nordic countries have had a passport union for over half a century. Nordic citizens were entitled to move freely between countries to work or study long before the EU adopted similar principles.


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