Editorial
Nordics, Nato and the neighbourhood
Nov 29, 2022 The Nordic Council is 70 this year, which was of course celebrated during its annual session in Helsinki. The Council President Erkki Tuomioja pointed out that parliamentarians cooperated for twenty years before the ministers got involved. In this edition, we take a closer look at the Nordic cooperation.
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Nordic cooperation spans everyday and fateful issues
Nov 29, 2022 “The Nordic Council deals with everyday issues of concern to the Nordic citizens,” Erkki Tuomioja told the media just before opening the 74th session in Helsinki on 1 November in his role as the Council President. Yet never before has a session been so dominated by big, existential issues.
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27 years since the last changes: Time to revise the Helsinki Treaty?
Nov 29, 2022 During its meeting in Helsinki in early November, the Nordic Council decided to call on the Nordic governments to start a “joint discussion with the Nordic Council about how the Nordic countries can better anchor the Nordic cooperation.” Or in other words: revise the Helsinki Treaty.
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How unique is the Nordic Council?
Nov 29, 2022 How unique is the Nordic cooperation, with its Nordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers? The nearest European parallels are the Benelux Union and the Benelux Parliament. At least in one area they have taken cooperation even further. But while people in the Nordics call themselves nordbor, no one calls themselves Beneluxianian.
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The labour ministers consider collective agreements' position in the Nordics
Nov 29, 2022 The Nordic governments should introduce a new kind of support where employers who sign up to collective agreements pay lower employer taxes for their employees. That was what Fafo researcher Jon Erik Dølvik proposed when he presented a report about collective agreements in the Nordics during the Nordic labour ministers’ meeting.
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Sweden takes on Council of the EU presidency at times of turmoil
Nov 28, 2022 On 1 January 2023, Sweden takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the next six months. The presidency means looking after all of the member countries’ interests and leading the work with all the issues in the Council’s in tray – including major decisions on migration, climate and EU expansion.
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Åland’s coding education attracts international talent
Oct 28, 2022 70 people of varying ages, from different countries and different student or occupational backgrounds, have started a joint journey in Åland. They have been accepted to the brand new grit:lab education where they will learn how to become creative computer coders – a skill which is sought-after nearly everywhere in the world.
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Why Finnish nurses choose Norway over their native country
Oct 28, 2022 In the largest hall at the Messukeskus conference centre, Finnish DJ Darude springs a surprise tune. Sandstorm blasts out to an enthusiastic audience made up of nearly 2,000 nurses from the whole of Finland during the annual nurses' days in Helsinki.
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Nordic men face different challenges from women in non-traditional jobs
Oct 28, 2022 Young women training to join typically male-dominated occupations make difficult choices but are also spurred on by family, teachers and politicians and end up with a high-status job. But when young men choose healthcare jobs, they get neither status nor good pay.
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The Swedes studying on nearly full pay
Oct 28, 2022 Up to 80 % pay. That is how much adults in Sweden on permanent contracts can be paid if they want to study in order to improve their basic education or change careers. Applications started flowing in as soon as the new support scheme became available.
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Nordic trade unions “too distant from rest of EU”
Oct 28, 2022 Who gains the most out of being a fly on the wall at the Council of Nordic Trade Unions congress in Oslo – the journalist or the social anthropologist? I suspect the latter, but since I am a journalist I will present the big news first: Iceland will host a tripartite meeting on green and just reform on 1 December 2023.
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Will the climate issue rejuvenate Nordic trade unions?
Oct 28, 2022 What signals were the most important to come out of the NFS congress in Oslo? We asked Ragnhild Lied, President of the Union confederation, to sum up her impressions. “What is clear now is that we are experiencing so many crises at once,” she says.
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