Bjllrn Tore Godal Norwegian Ambassador to Germany Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board Several of the contributions to the present volume of The NEBI Yearbook have been inspired by the fact that roughly speaking, ten years have passed since the first steps were taken to initiate cross-border co-operation in the Barents and Baltic Sea areas. One of the most important co-operative organisations in the European Northeast, i. e. The Council of the Baltic Sea States, was launched in 1992. The Barents Euro Arctic Council was established in 1993. An avalanche of co-operative and cross-border...

Thorvald Stoltenberg President of the Norwegian Red Cross Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board Despite the very optimistic language on the imminence of new accessions to the European Union that came out of the June 2001 European Council in Gothen burg, it will serve no good purpose to neglect the fact that EU membership for the Central and Eastern European applicants remains a difficult process. Painful experience makes it prudent to exercise caution in predicting developments with in the European Union. Negotiations may drag out, snags may appear and some thing may happen on the way to...

The NEBI Yearbook 1999 again aims to provide a balanced picture of both the integrationist opportunities and disintegrationist pressures in the entire North European and Baltic Sea area - a vast region with over 50 million inhabitants and great economic and trading potentials and crossing some of the most formidable historical and current divides of Europe. For this purpose it brings together 30 scholars from 10 countries covering a wide range of scientific fields that do not usually collaborate.

Thorvald Stoltenberg Ambassador Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board Most of us have been overwhelmed by the speed and extent of the changes that have been taking place in Europe since the late 1980s. Over the span of a few years, we have witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unification of Ger many. This process has had far-reaching implications for Northern Europe: the Baltic states have attained independence, and with the establishment of the Baltic Sea regional co-operation and the Barents co-operation, a new type of East-West relations has come into being. The process of...

The NEBI Yearbook 2000 aims to provide a balanced picture of both the integrationist opportunities and disintegrationist pressures in the North European and Baltic Sea area - a region with over 50 million inhabitants and great economic and trading potentials. It brings together a wide range of scientific methods and perspectives in addition to a comprehensive statistical section with information found nowhere else. The result is a unique source of up-to-date knowledge of this increasingly important European region.