Arkhangelsk wants more Barents Cooperation
-Our main project is friendship, Arkhangelsk Governor Ilya Mikhalchuk said in this week’s meeting with diplomats from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Russia, as well as the EU Commission.
-We have so much in common: historic roots, climate and geographic conditions and I hope that we also have a common future, the governor said to the diplomats visiting his region in connection with a session in Committee of Senior Officials (CSO), a body under the Barents Euro-Arctic Council.
CSO Chairman Anton Vasiliev, Russian Ambassador at Large, reported that the Barents Cooperation is not primarily aimed at large ambitious projects. He believes it is better to concentrate on smaller and medium-size projects. -But all of them should have some practical outcome for the region, he underlined at a press conference on the event, Barents.no reports.
Representative of the European Commission, Fernando Garses de los Fayos, said to the press that cooperation could experience a period with less new initiatives following the Russian-Georgian conflict. He believes however that the well-functioning cooperation will continue despite current tensions. A
lso leader of the International Barents Secretariat, Aleksandr Ignatyev, highlighted that the Barents Cooperation will continue to develop despite the current political problems following the Georgia conflict.
