ABSTRACT
Still the other European Community? In European policy-making, the Nordic countries are often viewed as a relatively coherent bloc. They share a number of characteristics, including lengthy democratic traditions, relatively high levels of wealth, Protestant traditions, and the low levels of corruption that traditionally characterise social democratic welfare states (cf. Archer 1996; Arter 2008; Kuisma 2007; Miles 1996), and, with the occasional exception of Sweden, they are usually regarded as small states (see e.g. Jakobsen 2009; Wivel 2014). In international and European affairs, the Nordic position has traditionally been conditioned on being different from Europe and better than Europe (Wæver 1992). For many years, the Nordic countries – often characterised as ‘reluctant Europeans’ (Miljan 1977) or the ‘other European Community’ (Turner and Nordquist 1982) – explored alternative solutions to membership of the European integration project. They did not give up on their attempt to create a Nordic customs union until 1970 and the first Nordic country, Denmark, joined the European Community as late as 1973. Finland and Sweden first joined in 1995, and Norway and Iceland remain outside the European Union (EU). While Denmark and Sweden are EU members, they have opted out of the Economic and Monetary Union; moreover, Denmark has maintained opt-outs regarding defence issues and justice and home affairs since 1993. This volume aims to provide a systematic comparative study of the Nordic countries and the EU. We describe how the Nordic approach to European policy-making has developed over the past decades and explain why the Nordic countries are similar in some respects while differing in others when engaging with EU institutions in a number of policy areas. The book basically asks if the Nordic countries are still the ‘other’ European community or if time and their different roles vis-à-vis the EU have turned them into a less coherent bloc. The book makes three contributions to the current literature on the Nordic countries and the EU.
