Barents Regional Council meeting without Russian governors

The county governors from northern parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway had a long list of east-west development-wishes with them in the luggage to the Kiruna-meeting. But the political discussions on how to boost the cross-border cooperation never took off since no Russian governors were sitting around the table at the Regional Barents meeting

- It is sad that none of the governors from Russia find time to come here today, says Pia Svensgaard, head of the Barents Regional Council and County Governor of Troms in northern Norway. She find it surprising since much of the issues on the agenda is highly relevant also for the population in the Russian part of the Barents Region.

- We had ambitions to involve the Russian governors more in our political talks on the regional level and I find it strange that they don’t make priority to it, Pia Svensgaard says.

Foreign Ministers meeting
Also county Governor of Finnmark, Runar Sjåstad finds it a bit sad that none of his Russian colleagues find time to come to the meeting.

- This is a very good meeting place, since all four Barents Foreign Ministers will arrive later tonight for the bi-annual Barents Council meeting. But, I presume the governors have good reasons for not coming, says Runar Sjåstad.

The Regional Council meeting took place just hours before Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov landed at the airport in Kiruna. Lavrov will meet with his Barents colleagues from Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The three Russian regions Murmansk, Komi and Karelia were represented at the meeting by stand-inn from the administrative level. Arkhangelsk and Nenets were not represented at all.

- Very long travel to Kiruna
Dmitri Kislov from the Republic of Karelia explains his governor’s lack of participation at the meeting with very tight time-schedules at home.

- For Karelia the Barents cooperation is always important, but traveling from Petrozavodsk to Kiruna in northern Sweden takes many days all together. So it is mainly technical and logistical questions, says Dmitri Kiselov.

He underlines that even if the Karelian governor doesn’t turn up at the Barents Regional Council meeting, the important job in the different topical working groups in the Barents Cooperation continues. –The university in Petrozavodsk is now heading the educational working group and that is going very well, explains Kislov.

Also Murmansk Oblast’s representative at the Kiruna meeting, Yevgeny Galkin explains his governor’s absence with tight time-schedules at home.

Election time
- There is election time in Russia and all governors are responsible for the campaigns for their party, United Russia, says Yevgeny Galkin. He says the election campaign schedules are decided on Federal level and the time-schedule is very tight.

Galkin however underlines that the absence of the five Russian governors at the meeting in Kiruna is not at all a sign of less priority to the Barents cooperation.

Alternative participation
- It is all about finding time, Galkin says. –Maybe we should study more in detail how to avoid such situations in the future. It should be discussed on which level the participation at the meetings in the Barents Regional Council will have, Galkin continues. –Maybe representatives could be vice-governors or someone from the regional Duma.

The most important is to secure sustainable participation at the Regional Council, Galkin says.

The Barents Regional Council meeting on Tuesday ended with handing over the chairmanship of the regional level from Troms County to Norrbotten County. Per-Ola Eriksson, Governor of Norrbotten will chair the council for the coming two years.

- It would have been very useful is the Russian governors took part in the meetings, says Per-Ola Eriksson. He hopes they will come to the next meetings.