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International Activities

Objectives and Tasks of Karelia's International Activities

For the period of 1999 to 2002 and up to 2010 the Government of the Republic of Karelia defined tasks and objectives as follows:

1. search and attraction to the Republic of Karelia of additional funds for the social sector, including health care, social welfare, culture, education, physical culture and sports;
2. contribution to the promotion outside Russia of interests of enterprises, whose business is economically and socially significant for both administrative units of the republic and Karelia in general;
3. contribution to drawing to the Republic of Karelia of new technologies, scientific developments, encouragement of scientific cooperation and environmental protection cooperation at international level;
4. training of highly-skilled specialists abroad, in particular in public and municipal administration.

To achieve the objectives of international activities mentioned above, the Government finds it necessary to implement the following tasks on a step-by-step basis:

1. development of bilateral cooperation between the Republic of Karelia and Finland;
   Finland stays as a prioritized country for Karelia’s international activities, takes a leading place in external links of Karelia. What seems to be the basic task is transition to a higher level of contacts with regions – communes’ unions of Finland, also through setting up "Karelia Euregion".
   This cooperation has a well-developed legal basis of interstate and regional level and belongs to priorities recognized at federal level;

2. strengthening of Karelia’s position in the Northern Europe;
   The Northern Europe, because of its historic, geographical, geopolitical, cultural, national and other reasons, is a major object of Karelia’s regional strategy at international level. The overwhelming number of international projects the republic implements with regions of Scandinavian countries. Participation of the republic in programmes of the Northern Council, Northern Europe Ministers’ Council, Middle North Committee also determines the priority of contacts with the Northern Europe. Within the framework of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council Karelia develops relations with provinces of Norbotten (Sweden), Finnmark, Nurland (Norway);

3. restoration of links with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
   Cooperation with members of the CIS is targeted at achieving a more stable situation connected with the sale of production made in Karelia; providing the population and enterprises of the republic with consumer goods, industrial raw material, equipment, accessories; ensuring assistance to fellow countrymen; preservation of national and cultural relations and human contacts.
   Collaboration with the Republic of Belarus based on Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Karelia and Government of the Republic of Belarus of June 28, 1999 is considered a priority as regards to development of links with the CIS;

4. extension of contacts of the Republic of Karelia with regions of the Western Europe. European Union at the current moment is the largest donor of international programmes being implemented in the republic.
   It looks reasonable to seek after membership of Karelia in the Euregion project or independently in the Association of European Cross-Border Regions to get access to additional funds;

5. extension of relations of Karelian towns and districts with administrative units of other countries.
   This task is geographically oriented at mainly Northern and Western Europe, and Northern America.
   Countries of this region in the period from 1992 to 1998 were involved to a different extent into trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation with Karelian towns and districts. However, quite often these relations were sporadic, and this irregularity did not allow to us them effectively;

6. forming outside Russia the image of the Republic of Karelia as a region favorable to foreign investments, able to conduct of ecological and environmental, scientific and educational, and tourist activities at international level, including through providing conditions needed to run events of international level.

Achievement of objectives and implementation of tasks related to activities at international level are accounted for by a number of both positive and negative factors.

Geographic and geopolitical position of the Republic of Karelia, its considerable resource, tourist, recreational and cultural potential, well-developed network of scientific, research, educational institutions – these are some of factors positively influencing development of international links at different levels.

In the meantime, a number of factors impedes the process of establishing and, in particular, developing international links, which, according to the definition, are called to become an effective support in stabilization of the economic and social situation in the republic. These factors are:

1. lack of Russia’s strategy of developing cross-border regions and cross-border cooperation.
   The absence of this strategy does not allow regions to get an access to international organizations, financial institutions, the regulation of which implies activity with projects and programmes of regions having official support from the federal centre;

2. lack of a clear position of the federal centre towards international initiatives (Northern Dimension in the EU Policy, strategy of the EU and some countries of the Northern Europe in regard to cooperation with Russia) and inadequate consistency of the centre in implementation of international programmes (lack of the Target Barents Programme at level of the Russian Federation, deficit of initiatives on issues of cooperation within the Baltic States Council).
   Foreign partners implies availability of counter evaluations, proposals, initiatives, share holding in investment and other projects from Russia’s federal agencies.
   In the absence of the counter movement in the period from 1992 to 1998 regions of the Russian Federation participating in the aforementioned organizations and initiatives often played a passive role and acted as suppliants, but not equal partners.

3. strengthening of competition among subjects of the Russian Federation to participate in international projects and programmes.
   This competition turns out not in favour of the Republic of Karelia that can not be attributed to large industrial, scientific and technical centres (like Moscow or St.-Petersburg) nor to regions that are able to independently, without federal support and donations, at the expense of their own resources to run a full-scale activity at international level (Tatarstan, Yakutia (Republic of Sakha), Republic of Komi and others).

Thus, having taken into consideration the said negative factors, which can be extended by the outdated agreement base of interstate relations with Finland and lack of the federal legislation favourable for development of cooperation at international level, the Government, calculating mainly on its own resources and funds, brings about trends and forms of cooperation as follows.