ABSTRACT
Codified in the Helsinki Agreement of 1962 and institutionalised in the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordic cooperation - between the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - encompasses a wide variety of activities. In the long history of Nordic collaboration, far-reaching plans for cooperation between the Nordic countries have been presented. Nordic cooperation in matters of security had before that been mainly limited to the joint declarations of neutrality by Denmark, Norway and Sweden during the two world wars. The Finnish initiative on a Nordic nuclear weapon free zone has been one of the most persistent issues of discussion linked to foreign policy and security. Comments on international affairs outside the purely Nordic sphere were even more occasional. The process of European integration has always been important for the Nordic countries. The work for a Nordic passport union began in the early 1950s.
