Troms County Council held session in Murmansk

Troms County was represented in Murmansk with nearly all top regional politicians and members of the regional administration.

The regional parliament in Troms, Northern Norway, was invited to Murmansk by its Russian counterpart, Murmansk Oblast Duma. The Russian parliamentarians wanted to see how a Norwegian regional parliament works, and the County Council therefore held a regular session in Murmansk, with Speaker in the ragional Duma Yevgeny Nikora and Chariman in the Duma’s Committee on Legislation Pavel Sazhinov present.

Nikora later commented that it is remarkable that a Norwegian regional parliament would hold a session in Murmansk, and underlined that it shows how highly the cooperation is valued.

Yevgeny Nikora supports increased cooperation on the regional political level in the Barents Region, and has invited all top regional politicians to Murmansk in the end of September for a conference on priority areas for the Barents cooperation in the period 2010-2013.

At a workshop on the prospective for further cooperation between Murmansk Oblast and Troms County the Norwegian officials and and representatives for Murmansk regional Ministries and Duma Committees discussed all aspects of an agreement on cooperation the two northern regions have had going since February 2009.

Troms and Murmansk have cooperation projects within a wide range of issues like health, culture, fishing and aquaculture.

One of the things the politicians from both sides of the border agreed one hundred percent on was that communications - especially airline connection - between Murmansk and Tromsø must become better. The air connection between the two towns is currently operated by the Russian company Nordavia, with two flights in both directions every week.