WORKSHOP 1

RECOGNISED NEEDS AND POTENTIALS OF COOPERATION AND COORDINATION IN THE BSR

 

 

Regional Report – Scandinavia and Finland

Lars Olof Persson

Nordic Centre for Spatial Development (Nordregio)

Box 1618

SE-111 86 STOCKHOLM

This report is compiled from

Hanell, T., Aalbu, H & J. Neubauer, Regional Development in the Nordic Countries 2002. Nordregio Report 2002:2

Strong but uneven economic development during the 1990s

This report concerns regional development trends in the three Scandinavian countries (Den­mark, Norway, Sweden) and Finland. During the 1990s and in all these countries, economic development has been strong and in general better than the corresponding average for e.g. the EU member states. Finland and Sweden were into a heavy recession in the early 1990s, and growth since then has been very rapid. Between 1991 and 2001 Finnish GDP growth was 33 per cent, in Sweden just over 20 per cent.  For both countries the expansion of exports mainly within ICT has until recently been the main engine of growth, whereas Norway’s economy, fuelled mainly by rising oil exports, grew by some 38 per cent between 1991 and 2001. Hence Norway takes a lead among these countries at GDP growth throughout the decade. Denmark has also maintained sustained growth over the decade, where GDP since the peak year 1995 has increased steadily at 2-3 per cent per year rendering an overall augmentation between 1993 and 2001 of 26 per cent. The primary motor of Danish growth has been in export led fields.

As economic performance in these countries is so strongly tied to exports, the sluggish per­formance of the global economy in general and EU economy in particular has significantly affected economic development in Scandinavia and Finland. Thus GDP growth in all Nordic countries with the exception of Norway was due to the global recession, curbed substantially in the latter part of 2001, most particularly so in Finland, where during that year it increased by only half a percentage point. The high dependency on a few companies particularly in Finland but also to some extent in Sweden (e.g. Nokia, Ericsson) entails that macroeconomic wealth is subject to considerable fluctuations in line with these companies’ results.  The same type of arguments could also be extended to Norwegian dependence on world crude oil prices. 

Similar Patterns of Polarization

In comparison with the EU Member States, economic growth in the period 1991-2001 in the Nordic countries shows that Norway and Finland were surpassed only by Ireland and Luxem­bourg. However, among the EU countries only Germany, Italy and France have seen lower growth than Sweden over the corresponding period. When compared with the EU average in GDP, of the all the Nordic countries the fastest changes have occurred in respect of Norway, jumping some twelve-percentage points between 1992 and 2001. The proportional position of Finland and Denmark has also improved by around ten percentage points, whereas Sweden’s relative standing has remained much the same over the period. On a regional level in the Nordic countries polarisation between the capital regions on the one hand and the more peripheral ones on the other becomes evident, particularly so in Finland and Norway. Of all regions in Scan­dinavia and Finland, the capital regions top the list in economic performance. Oslo (and Akers­hus) lay an estimated 81 per cent above EU 15 average, followed by Greater Copenhagen (45 per cent above), Uusimaa (42 per cent) and Stockholm (34 per cent). Although true comparison between Nordic and EU regions is not feasible due to differing geo­graphical delimitations of regions, from a European perspective only London, Brussels, Luxem­bourg and Hamburg surpass Oslo. Greater Copenhagen also ranks among the top EU regions and, apart from the above ones, is exceeded only by Paris (Ile-de-France), Oberbayern, Vienna, Darmstadt and Utrecht.

Finland shows the largest regional variations. Uusimaa apart, Åland is the sixth most prosperous region in Scandinavia and Finland with a GDP/capita exceeding the EU average by 30 per cent.  The only other Finnish region lying above the EU average is the region surrounding Turku.  On the other hand Kainuu (32 per cent below EU average) and three other regions in northern Fin­land are currently the only Nordic regions that have a GDP/capita than 75 per cent of the EU 15 average.  However, even these would not be below the 75 per cent threshold rule for Objective I eligibility if GDP per capita were calcuculated for an additional ten new member states (EU25).

In Norway, apart from Oslo (and Akershus), eleven regions exceed the average by between 31 (Rogaland) and 3 per cent (Vestfold).  On the other hand Oppland lies some 9 per cent below the EU average.

In Denmark the only three regions to lie below the EU age are Storström (15 per cent below), Vestsjälland and Bornholm, the first two being industrial regions with substantial structural diffi­culties and Bornholm being a region where primary production plays an important role. At the other end of the scale we see the highly industrialised regions of Ringköbing (20 per cent above), Ribe, Sönderjylland and Viborg (10 per cent).

Sweden has the smallest regional variations of all the Nordic countries. Apart from Stockholm, four Swedish regions have a GDP per capita above the EU average, namely Kronoberg (5 per cent above), Jönköping (2 per cent), Västernorrland (3 per cent) and Norrbotten (2 per cent).  The former two are dedicated small-scale industrial regions, whereas the latter two are domin­ated by process industries (energy production, mining, forestry).  In this respect the least "pros­perous" Swedish regions include Södermanland, Uppsala and Halland, all of which lay slightly more than 10 per cent below the EU average.  Apart from pure inaccuracies in estimating the GDP, there are however at least two factors which should be taken into account before attaching too much importance to the figures above.

Firstly, commuting has a substantial effect on (statistically measured) regional economic per capita performance.  Thus regions where considerable parts of the work force commute to another region (such as the above-mentioned three in Sweden, Itä-Uusimaa in Finland or the regions around Oslo in Norway) are most likely understated in GDP per capita terms.  Secondly, out-migration of the population affects per capita estimations creating "growth" where there is none.  This holds true particularly for the peripheries of Finland, Norway and Sweden, where out-migration levels have been extremely high in the latter part of the 1990s. 

Secondly, out-migration of the population affects per capita estimation creating “growth” where there is none.

 

Unemployment with East-West divide

Although unemployment in all four countries has over the last four decades increased and de­creased in line with normal business cycles, structural unemployment for most of these countries is a relatively new phenomenon.  In the aftermath of the first oil crisis, by around 1975 Denmark became the first to experience high unemployment rates that later refused to decline despite good economic growth.  Today Finland and to a lesser extent Sweden could be characterised as being in a similar position, whereas nearly full employment prevails the other countries.

In the three years between 1990 and 1993 well over one million jobs were lost in Scandinavia and Finland together, largely due to the economic crisis in Finland and Sweden. Employment in Denmark declined by some 65,000 persons during the period 1990-93.

Substantial growth in employment after 1993

Since then, employment across the Nordic countries has increased substantially, with more than one million new jobs created between 1993 and 2000. Again, and not surprisingly, Finland and Sweden have been the main beneficiaries, with more than 300,000 new jobs respectively.  How­ever, rapid economic growth between 1993 and 2000 has also seen 75,000 more jobs being cre­at­ed in Norway.  Between 1993 and 1999 employment in Denmark increased by some 140,000 persons.

All in all, employment in Norway is 13 per cent higher in 2000 than it was nine years earlier in 1991.  The equivalent increase in Finland was 3 per cent. Employment in Sweden however still lags behind the 1991 level by 2 per cent.  For employment to attain similar heights as the all time high year of 1990, some 95,000 new jobs are still needed in Finland and many as 265,000 in Sweden.  In 1999 employment in Denmark was some 5 per cent above the level of 1991.

The labour markets in Scandinavia and Finland are, despite their relative openness and the free Nordic movement of labour, to a significant degree still national entities. Thus regional employ­ment and unemployment in the Nordic countries remains characterised first and foremost by variations between countries and only secondly by variations between regions within countries.  In this respect regional polarisation trends are strongest in Sweden though eastern and northern Finland is also lagging behind the largest urban centres.

Capital regions are hot spots

The biggest absolute employment increases between 1994 and 1999 were in the capital areas.  During the period in question the number of jobs in Uusimaa (the region surrounding Helsinki) increased by 23 per cent and in Stockholm and Oslo by 12 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.  The number of jobs also increased by nearly 9 per cent in the Greater Copenhagen area. The main motor behind employment growth in all of these capital areas is the expansion of the private service sector, with particular emphasis on business services.  Other dynamic indus­tries include ICT (all capitals) and pharmaceuticals (Copenhagen, Stockholm).

All in all between 1994 and 1999 employment increased by over 10 per cent in 20 of the 74 regions, of which 10 were Norwegian and 7 Finnish. 

 

 

Varied unemployment landscape

As a consequence of the significant reduction in employment in the early 1990s, followed by at times extremely uneven distribution of new jobs, the unemployment landscape of the Nordic countries is now highly varied, but again by and large still connected within national boundaries.

Nordic unemployment reached its peak in 1993 when than 1.3 million Nordic citizens were un­em­ployed, mainly in Finland, Sweden and Denmark.  By 2001 this figure has halved to some 690,000 persons, most of whom were in Finland and Sweden. The number of those unemployed is slightly over 105,000 in Denmark, with some 87,000 in Norway. 

Finland – with its persistently high unemployment - is the most problematic case.  In April 2001 the average unemployment rate in Finland was 10.2 per cent, compared to the corresponding EU15 average of 7.6 per cent. Of the EU countries only Greece, Italy and Spain have higher rates.  Youth unemployment in northern Finland is also among the highest in the EU.

Regional variations are substantial and of all the Nordic countries Finland has the largest region­al polarisation in this respect.  Among all Nordic regions Finnish ones hold both the highest and the lowest positions.  Whilst the unemployment rate in April 2001 in Åland was a meagre 1.5 per cent it was 18.2 per cent in Kainuu in northern Finland. This is to such an extent that Finland among the EU countries is rivalled only by the split between southern and northern Italy and the partition between Eastern and Western Germany.

Across all Finnish regions unemployment has successively decreased since its peak in 1994.  In Kainuu however unemployment increased slightly between 1999 and 2000, but this trend was subsequently reversed in 2001. Other Finnish areas with high unemployment are predominantly to be found in the northern and eastern parts of the country. A total of 14 Finnish regions have an unemployment rate above 10 per cent.  The corresponding number of municipalities that do so however amounts to 251 (of a total of 448).  A vast majority of these are naturally within the above-mentioned regions, but they can also be found in many of heavily industrialised regions further south. With the exception of Åland, Uusimaa/Helsinki at 6.2 per cent has the lowest un­em­ployment rate in Finland.

Compared to Finland, unemployment in the Scandinavian countries is minuscule, with Sweden, in April 2001, having a rate of only 4.9 per cent, Denmark and Norway respectively 3.7 per cent.

Despite the comparatively low level of unemployment seen in Sweden substantial regional variations do exist. These have however decreased successively since 1997. Norrbotten tops the Swedish list with an unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent, which is three times as much as in Stockholm, which is the lowest in the country.  Norrbotten is also the only Swedish region where unemployment lies above the corresponding EU average.  Other Swedish regions with compar­atively high unemployment levels include Gävleborg and Västernorrland in the north.  All in all nine Swedish municipalities had an unemployment rate exceeding 10 per cent in April 2001, the highest ones being exclusively in Norrbotten.  Less than half, or 133 of the total number of Swedish municipalities (289) had a higher unemployment rate than the country on average.

In Denmark regional variations are not that pronounced, the variation having increased and decreased slightly during the latter part of the 1990s.  In April 2001 unemployment in Bornholm was at 6.9 per cent, which was the highest of all Danish counties. Greater Copenhagen and Ringköbing on the other hand had only 3.0 and 2.9 per cent respectively.  Other regions with, in Danish terms, high unemployment include Nordjylland (5.3 per cent), Storström (5.0 per cent) and Fyn (4.5 per cent).

As in Denmark, in Norway regional variations are not particularly noteworthy, although Finnmark, with an unemployment rate of 6.6 per cent, constitutes an exception here. 

Migration to metropolitan regions

It has long been observed that migration tends to decrease during times of recession and cor­res­pondingly to increase in strength during economic upswings.  The Nordic countries are no exception to this.  During the severe economic recession of the early 1990s that hit Finland and Sweden in particular, domestic migration slowed dramatically.  As the economies slowly re­covered towards the middle of the decade migration also increased in intensity.  By the end of the 1990s however this migratory pressure had reached a level not witnessed in nearly three decades. In Finland net levels equalled those of the early 1970s. Moreover, in Norway domestic inter-municipal mobility in 2000 was at its highest level since 1977, and net migration levels for some regions were on a par with those of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Even in Denmark, where the situation has remained more stable throughout the 1990s, out-migration from some regions has increased in the last two or three years.

This general situation is further aggravated by low fertility rates.  This holds true particularly for Sweden, where natural population change (the excess of births over deaths) has been negative since 1997, but also for several other regions in Denmark and Finland.  The worst hit regions, between 1995-2000, in this respect are Jämtland, Västernorrland, Gävleborg, Kalmar, Värmland and Dalarna in Sweden, and Bornholm and Storström in Denmark. Norway has, on average, high reproduction rates, although here significant regional variations do exist.

The effects of ongoing globalisation have moreover further added to the momentum on popula­tion concentration.  Capital or metropolitan areas in the four countries have - apart from tradi­tionally playing the role of gateway to the national economy - primarily acted within the frame­work of their national urban systems.  This has at least to some extent guaranteed a moderately balanced development pattern between the larger cities of the Nordic countries and their res­pective country hinterlands.  In the 1990s this fragile balance was challenged by ongoing tech­nological and economy development as well as by regional and international integration.  The accumulated effect of such changes is transforming the regional urban system.  The ever in­creasing importance of the "knowledge-based" economy, the concentration of R&D, increased competition between cities and countries, have all played their part in precipitating the unusually large polarisation of population and economic activity towards the larger centres.

For the Finnish capital region the pace has also been rapid, as they increased their share of the national population from 22 per cent in 1970, to 27 per cent in 2000.  In Stockholm and Oslo (including Akershus county) the relative increase has not been as dramatic (3 and 1 percentage points respectively).  For Greater Copenhagen, developments have shown a rather different pattern, as the region experienced an absolute population decline beginning in 1975 and ending only in 1990.  Thus the Danish capital region's share of the country's population is today actually smaller than it was three decades ago, although the polarisation discussed above has once again increased in the 1990s.

During the five year period 1995-2000 the population of Stockholm county increased by 97,000 persons.  The corresponding increase was also substantial in Uusimaa (80,000 persons), Copenhagen (55,000) as well as in Oslo and Akershus counties jointly (52,000).  Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki were among the top ten growing regions in the EU.

In Oslo and Helsinki regions natural increase accounted for nearly half of the overall population change, whereas migration was the major reason for the population increase in Stockholm and Copenhagen.

This rapid growth in population has been accompanied by an equally fast - or faster - increase of the capital region’s share of their respective countries’ economic activity, such as employment or Gross Domestic Product.  Growth within the private service sector has been particularly dyna­mic.  For instance between 1995 and 1999 in the Uusimaa (Helsinki region), employment within the banking and insurance sector increased by ten percentage points faster than it did on aver­age across Finland.  Moreover, employment within the construction, transport and storage, retail trade and the hotel and restaurant sectors increased by significantly more than in the rest of the country.  Similarly, Greater Copenhagen increased its share of Danish employment within the banking and finance sector by close to three percentage points. Employment in hotel, restau­rants and telecom industries increased by more than a fifth during the same period, that is to say, by nearly ten percentage points faster than the average across Denmark.  Similar data from Oslo and Stockholm corroborate such trends.

At the municipal level such population changes lead to urban sprawl throughout the capital regions, and many municipalities located at a reasonable commuting distance from the cities have, as a rule, grown faster than the central parts of the cities themselves. This is perhaps most clearly illustrated around Oslo, where high housing prices have driven the in-migration structure further and further from the city centre along the main transport arteries towards neighbouring counties, as well as southwards on both shores of the Oslo fjord. A similar radial new immi­gration pattern is evident around Helsinki and Stockholm.

The pattern is different in Copenhagen, however, where several municipalities west of the city centre are losing population due to migration.  The reasons for this are mainly demographic.  The residential areas of these municipalities emerged rapidly in the 1970s and are inhabited by families now having children between 15 and 20 years of age.  These out-migrate for education to Copenhagen and do not return because their parental generation is still occupying the hous­ing stock.  A similar demographic bulge north of Copenhagen is not visible as clearly as in the west, as the construction of the building stock has taken place over much a longer period.  At the same time the central parts of Copenhagen as well as a number of surrounding municipalities have been increasing in population due to migration.

Attractive second-order urban centres

All in all, 34 regions (out of Scandinavia’s and Finland’s 74) had on average a positive migration balance during the latter part of the 1990s.  Apart from the capital areas and regions adjacent to them - which clearly lead in both absolute and relative terms, other in-migration centres are mainly comprised of the largest second-order urban centres such as Århus and Aalborg in Den­mark, Tampere and Turku in Finland, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim in Norway, as well as Gothenburg and Malmö in Sweden. In addition regions with University cities such as Kolding in Denmark, Jyväskylä and Oulu in Finland, Tromsö in Noray and Karlstad, Örebro, Uppsala and Umeå in Sweden belong to this category, although the surrounding region as a whole may continue to experience population decline through migration.

A significant difference between the early and the late 1990s, however, is that many regional centres that once managed to act as barriers to regional population loss now no longer are able to stem the tide.  Thus cities, such as Rovaniemi in Finland or Östersund in Swen, which during the early 1990s had a positive migration balance, have themselves - by the end of the decade - now begun to experience a negative one.

Dramatic losses in the periphery

Nevertheless, however fast the growth rates in the capital and other large city regions may be, in relative terms the corresponding losses in the periphery are even greater - and seemingly increasing at an alarming rate.  On average during the period 1990-94, a third of all regions in Scandinavia and Finland (25 out of a total of 74) had a negative net migration rate.  During the period 1995-2000 this number increased to 41 or well over half of all regions.  Of these, 16 were in Sweden, 14 in Finland, 6 in Norway and 3 in Denmark.

The worsening net migration rates evident towards the end of the decade can mainly be attri­buted to increasing north-south migration flows (in Finland, Norway, and Sweden).  Although the return flows have also risen, they have not done so to a similar degree.  For instance in Poh­jois-Savo in Finland, annual domestic out-migration increased from 8,000 persons in 1993 to 12 300 in 1999, while domestic in-migration only increased from 7,700 to 10,900 during the same period, thus considerably increasing the net loss. A similar pattern is also evident in other more peripheral Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish regions.

At the municipal level there is a strong correlation between out-migration and the size of the po­pu­lation of the municipality, as indeed there is also between out-migration and peripheral loca­tion.  During the period 1995-2000, three out of every four Finnish municipalities (337 out of 448) suffered from an average migration loss.  In Sweden the municipalities with such losses amount­ed to two thirds of the total (195 out of 289), and in Norway to 55 per cent of the total.

The summarised net loss of population due to migration for all out-migration municipalities in Finland, Norway and Sweden amounts to more than a quarter of a million persons during a period of only six years (1995-2000). 

Using the municipal boundaries as a rough proxy for real physical space, the Finnish figures translate to more than nine tenths (90 per cent) of Finnish territory constituting an out-migration area.  The corresponding rate for Sweden for 85 per cent, for Norway 72 per cent, but for Den­mark only a third.  (31 per cent). 

For comparison, measured in NUTS 2 units, population declined between 1995 and 1999 in slightly over one third (37 per cent) of the European Union’s territory excluding Finland and Sweden.  Even with a significant margin of error due to the limited comparability between the spatial units analysed, the difference between the northernmost Nordic countries and the rest of the EU is nonetheless substantial.  Comparable larger concentrations of population loss in the EU can be found only in the New German Länder, which themselves have been subject to ser­ious structural problems.  Alentejo in Portugal, Asturias in northern Spain, the island region of Voreio Aigaio in Greece and Merseyside in the UK are the only other EU regions where popul­ation loss in relative terms comes even close to the worst hit regions in Northern Europe.

Within the present Structural Funds Objective I area, only five municipalities in Finland (out of 132) and three in Sweden (out of 49) bad, on average, a positive annual net migration rate between 1995 and 2000.  Of the Finnish municipalities, as many as 112 had an average migration loss exceeding 0.5 per cent per year.  In Sweden such cases numbered 33.

Ageing and envisaged labour shortage

By the end of the year 2000, 15.8 per cent of the total Nordic population was aged 65 years or over.  Although this is only slightly above the EU average of 15.6 per cent (in 1998) - mainly due to the Swedish figures which show that it has the most elderly population of all in the Nordic countries, regional polarisation is significant and primarily to the disadvantage of the periphery.  All in all, 43 (out of 74) regions in Scandinavia and Finland lay above the present EU average. 19 of these regions are Swedish, 15 Finnish, 6 Danish and 3 Norwegian.  Thus approximately two out of every three Nordic municipalities - mostly located in Finland, Norway and Sweden - are above EU average.

Most metropolitan or other large city regions in this area have very young populations.  Both factors are highly visible with regard to natural population increase rates, particularly so in Sweden, the excess of births over deaths was on average during the period 1995-2000 positive in only four regions, namely Stockholm, Uppsala, Halland and Västra Götaland (Gothenburg).

The share of the elderly as such is not the main problem however, but rather it is the “depend­ency ratio”, i.e. the proportion of population economically active in relation to all other groups of citizens which includes e.g. children and schoolchildren, students, pensioners, persons in military service or on maternity leave, etc.  The portion is lowest in Finland (0.72). Regional variations are significant. Today there are 183 dependants per every 100 working persons in Kainuu in the north and only two Finnish regions - Uusimaa and Åland - have less than 100 dependants per 100 working persons.

This ratio is however forecasted to decrease still further.  In nearly one fourth of all EU regions, the working age population has already stopped growing. Sweden currently faces the most disadvantageous situations, though it should be noted that in the next twenty years the most profound changes are likely to be seen in Finland (and Åland).  When the large age cohorts born after the war reach pensionable age, the share of the working age population (15-64 years) is expected to shrink by 5.5 percentage points in Finland.  Denmark and Sweden are also in line for a decrease, though it will not be as significant as Finland.  

Development in Scandinavia and Finland is generally in line with overall projections for the EU as a whole.  A survey from Statistics Finland deals with the projected future population of the Finnish regions. In 30 years from now the number of people of working age will increase only in two regions around the capital, while the number of children will do so in only one region. In contrast, the number of persons under 65 years in Pohjois-Savo is expected to fall by 60,000, and the number of pensioners to rise by 25,000, leaving few future taxpayers.

The situation in Denmark however is much more positive. Estimations made in Denmark concluded only one Danish region, namely Bornholm, today already disadvantaged in demographic terms, would have a population loss (some 2 per cent) up till the 2013, this despite expected immigration to the island. All other Danish regions would see their population increase.  Nonetheless, despite its expected growth, Denmark will still have to bear the economic fiscal consequences of a lowered dependency ratio.

Remedies for decreasing the gap include increasing the actual retirement age, better utilisation of the large pool of those currently unemployed, or of those persons in different labour market measures, creating possibilities for integrating latent unemployment into the labour market, full time employment of the partially employed, speeding up the education process, and so on.  In many respects these measures are extremely difficult to realise and international immigration is foreseen as one of the most likely alternatives to the forthcoming labour shortage.  This debate is currently ongoing in all of the Nordic countries.  In order to maintain the current demographic balance, immigration would however have to be of such a magnitude that it seems unlikely that this would be politically feasible, at least not under present conditions.  Previously the Nordic countries have solved their labour surplus and deficit problems arising from different economic cycles - by exporting and importing labour among themselves, the Swedish and Finnish workers in e.g. the Norwegian health care and construction sectors in the mid-1990s constituting perhaps the last of their kind. Thus immigration would by definition have to be from further away. This is made even more problematic by the fact that the potential pool of surplus labour in the near vicinity of the Nordic countries (e.g. Russia, the Baltic States, Poland) is increasingly no longer there, as these countries are themselves now faced with problems similar to the Nordic countries in this regard.

SWOT Russia

Björn Engsten

Strength	Weakness
Partly well-educated country	Lack of good education and modern thinking
Rich in natural recourses	Bad and inefficient bureaucracy
Fairly good bottom line-infrastructure	The infrastructure is ageing fast
High-ranked aircraft- and space technology	Bad and inefficient tax-system
Big country	To big country
Well-educated work-force in the medical service	To scarce recourses to support and develop the same medical services
A strong people with a great patience	Stuck to soviet-thinking
	Bad conditions for SME:s
	Bad banking system
	Double-command (triple-) in governing the country

SWOT Russia

Opportunities (But need action to be realised)	Threat
Putin?	Bad country-leadership
Organise the use of the big assets in the nature	The Russian People mistrust the government
Encourage and support the growth/de­velopment of SME:s	Lack of control over the regional leaders
Clean up the taxation-system	Shrinking numbers of people available to work
Reorganise the bureaucracy	A few (The Oligarchs) govern the most important part of the economy in the country
Form a vision of the future Russia	The country leaders fail in creating a vision of the new Russia
Start a learning-processes (peoples, en­lighten­ing)	The western countries turn their backs to Russia
Develop and commercialise the Russian spearhead technology

What’s on in Russia today?

+ plus

§         Putin’s speech 18 April 2002

-                      focus on the economy

-          foreign policy subjugated to the economic goals

-          Russia has not got any special enemies in the world

-          We have to manage on our own to improve and develop our economy

-          The economy must grow faster

-          An inefficient government must be reformed

-          The management in the industry must improve (delete the soviet-thinking)

-          Fight against corruption (more complicated bureaucracy creates more corruption

-          Reforming the courts and the criminal laws ;the seven federal districts must execute more power and take care of the operational business in their area (that’s not a Moscow-task)

-          Three-year moratorium for small companies, dealing with authorities like fire brigades, sanitary-inspectors (to avoid bribe-taking)

-          To bring better government-control (budget) over the state monopolies: railways, energy system, gas/oil production

§         Positive signals from different international business organisations (Chambers of commerce etc.) that stress a change in the climate between Russian companies and companies from foreign countries

§         Growing export of high technology products for both the civil society, (space- and aircraft-industry) and for military use (different  weapon systems)

§         There is a great need of Russian oil in the global oil-market; a balance to the middle-east oil-producers

§         The delivering-capacity of the Russian oil-companies is today fairly good and they will increase their capacity.

- minus

§         Russian critics say that Putin has to switch from talk to action. There are some obstacles to overcome if Putin is going to succeed in carrying out his plans. Above everything it is time-consuming and the patience of people of Russia is not endless

§         The government is keeping a firm grip over the media (TV, radio, press…) the freedom of action of the free media is decreasing

§         Shrinking population and shrinking number of people available for work. Today there is 150 million inhabitants in Russia. The forecast of the population in Russia 2050 is 104 million inhabitants

§         Working - poor in the public sector, very low salaries, which feeds corruption

§         Lack of belief in the future among the young people today leads to increase in the use of alcohol and drugs

§         The main-part of the Russian economy is attached to the prices on raw-product market

§         Problems in leading the country efficient

-          the bureaucracy prevents the development and the quick changes by working slow

-          the different regions/governments in Russia are working rather independent from Moscow and don’t always carry out new laws and orders from the president with joy and speed

§         Old diseases like TBC are returning to Russia and increase; new ones like AIDS are growing fast.

Educational sector/ learning

§         In the public educational system the development still is  prevented by Soviet-thinking

-          old fashion methods

-          not matching the needs of the society in general and especially them of the companies

-          very little action-based problem-oriented learning technique

§         To small free educational sector

§         People in general don’t see education as an investment to the future. They are not prepared to pay to raise their competence

§         Companies interested in education have got a short-time perspective. A quick-fix thinking, rather than doing an analyse of the needs of the company and then from that analyse form a learning-plan.

Baltic Sea States, Lithuanian Case

E. Staniūnas

Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

After the year 1990 the three Baltic States Estonia Latvia and Lithuania started to be the independent actors in the scene of economical and political life of Europe. Lithuania, as the other two neighbour states, began some activity in the field of international spatial planning affairs to. This activity has taken part at different levels, has different forms, content, potentials and problems.

Bilateral co-operation

The most intensive two partners type co-operation has taken part between Lithuania and Po­land. It has had a very clear and practical background. During the USSR times the Soviet republics were relatively well connected with Moscow and each other. Their connections with other coun­tries were poor. The technical connection of the country with Western Europe became urgent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the following change of political economical and social interests. The shortest land way from Lithuania to the developed Western countries goes through the territory of Poland. Building the network of roads and other systems of technical infrastructure on both sides of the Polish-Lithuanian border was the most important basis for a bilateral planning activity. The cross – border relations between Poland and Lithuania at this moment are regulated at the national, regional and local levels. Co-operation principles between the Governments of countries are set in the Cross-border Co-operation Agreement, signed on 16 September 1995. The Agreement defines the formation of four working groups (infrastructure and border crossing, border co-operation, transitional co-operation and spatial planning). On the regional level Marijampolė county Governor’s Administration and Podlaskie Voivodeship on 16 March 2001 signed a Co-operation Agreement. This agreement crosses the co-operation in the areas of economy, ecology, agriculture, and the EU integration. At the local level the Marijam­polė town and the town of Suwalki have signed a Co-operation Agreement on July 1995. The agreement touches spheres of local governance, culture, education and tourism. Special attention is paid to the development of the transport connection and solving transit problems.

The most practical results are achieved mainly in the field of building and reconstruction of land transport connection and border crossing infrastructure. At the same time the need from Lithu­anian side is obvious to develop activities in this direction. The crossing of the border nowa­days is possible but takes a lot of time. It means that it is relatively expensive and environmentally unfriendly as well as uncomfortable for the people. By no doubts Lithuania is interested in a further development of the Polish road network and the technical quality of the roads, especially in the eastern part of the country.

It would allow to diminish the number of accidents on the roads, mantime and fuel losses by cross­ing Polish territory. Land transport is the cheapest at the moment, and because of that - the most accessible for the biggest part of the people in the country.

Much lower is the cross-border Cupertino with other neighbour countries of Lithuania. The feat­ures of competition but not of co-ordination sometimes can be noticed there.

Multilateral co-operation

During the last years Lithuania has taken part also in the international projects involving many countries. They can be divided in two types.

The first type – spatial planning studies. The study on Via Baltica can be mentioned here first of all. Planners from Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland have analysed the sequences of building this transnational road to the regions it should cross. Studies like this have the potential to overgrow to the legally more powerful planning acts. Some important circum­stances should force the Baltic States to pay the more serious attention to it.

The relatively big share of export links between Estonia and Finland, Estonia and Lithuania, Lithuania and Latvia, Lithuania and Germany [1] force to develop this transport corridor. The 48.4% of total Lithuanian export in 2001 were directed to the EU countries. The most important export partners of Lithuania were Germany (16.7% of the whole export), United Kingdom (14.2%), Latvia (13.7%) in 2001 [2] . The import from Western countries made also the biggest part – 43.3% of the whole imported goods in 2001 (import from Germany came to 16,7%, from Poland – 4.9%). Russian export to Lithuania totalled 27.1% [3] . The amount of cargo transported by the Via Baltica road constitutes about 50% of the general amount of transit freight. The role of the North-South road corridor has the evident tendency to grow.

The tendency of growing relatively worse the accessibility between Western Europe and the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea region is the second circumstance forcing to develop the North-South transport corridor.

The second type multilateral projects in which Lithuania has taken part are different studies: on geographical features of the region (for example, the project Cities and Networking: the Baltic Sea Region, VASAB 2010), on existing planning systems (for example, the project Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems in the Baltic Sea Region Countries VASAB 2010). This activity covers the big territory, its result – the deeper knowledge of the geography of the region and of the states in the context of it, the deeper knowledge philosophies of planning in the countries. At first sight these studies have a very theoretical character without any influence to the spatial policies in the countries. This “soft” information does its work however. Lithuanian planners and politicians very painfully accepted the relatively low category of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in the studies. This fact has played perhaps not the last role in the getting the idea of a more intensive connection of the two biggest cities in Lithuania Vilnius and Kaunas increasingly powerful.

It is very strange for me that the mentioned Compendium has not arisen any intensive dis­cussion in Lithuania about its planning system. The Compendium shows that the systems are different - and no reaction - as if it was the difference in clothes fashion but not the difference in governing instruments that by no doubts influence the efficiency of development of the country. The time for attention to the works like that will come.

The mentioned “soft” studies, covering a big part or the whole BSR region turn to the thought: will the EU limit itself on these “soft” spatial studies or will any general philosophy and any more strictly binding strategy of spatial development be developed? Is it possible? How it could be organised?

During the discussion Max van den Berg, chairman of the Workshop presented the scheme below and gave the following comments:

Cities and landscapes are man-made. Society’s ideas about city, countryside and regions are changing. This can be seen in the behaviour of individuals, in the use of space and the shape of space. We used to pay attention to city and countryside separately and now there is particular attention to the total living environment of the region.

The shape and structure of space is determined by political and institutional decisions. The actors in the systems are:

            Politicians:                 they have a mission and take decisions

            Experts:                     they have knowledge and skill and make visions and plans

            Entrepreneurs:         they have means for investments and can organise implementation

            Citizens:                     they have demands and ideas and give support to people’s representatives

 

The balance of power between them differs from country to country. Also the role of urban planning differs. The shape of cities and countryside is determined by history and by power balance of the main actors.

Final Summary by Rapporteur Karl-Gustav Palmér, ISoCaRP

Summary

Thanks to the three introducers!

They gave a good ground on a rather high intellectual level.

Max van den Bergs figure with the positions for actors who are transforming society, like experts, politicians, entrepreneurs, and citizens, was a good model for the discussions.

 

Lars Olof Persson – Scandinavia

He talked about the diminishing persons out of labour. There is a risk of shortage of manpower in a near future. Both Finland and Sweden are recovering after entering the union. There is a heavy growth in Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki and Skåne. That means great changes between the municipalities. In Sweden for instance around 30 municipalities are increasing their population while 260 municipalities are decreasing. Maybe some municipalities have to die in the future. There is a need for a New Regional Politics, especially in the following 4 areas:

-          Depopulation – Labour shortage

-          Policy failures – at Union level and National level

-          Metropolization

-          Communities – Divergences

Björn Engsten – Russia

He has been working in the area of St Petersburg since 1999. He started with a swot analysis of the situation.

Positive                                                   Negative

Partly well-educated manpower              Lack of good education in modern thinking

Rich in natural resources                         Bad bureaucracy

Fairly good infra structure                        Ageing very fast

Big country                                               Too big country

Well-educated in the medical sector       Too scarce resources

                                                                 Stick to Soviet thinking

                                                                 Bad banking system

                                                                 Double command in governing the country

Opportunities                                         Threats

Learning about market economy             Bad country leadership

How to start a dialogue                            Lack of control of the regional leaders

Producing more rockets than USA          Decreasing manpower

Have no enemies                                     Problems with oil dikes

Reforming the government                                            Corruption

Making good things for environment        Rapid decreasing of the population

                                                                 No learning by doing

                                                                 No analysis

                                                                 Diseases are coming back – TBC for instance

Eugenijus Staniunas – The Baltic countries

There is a cooperation with Poland. The situation is rather different between the Baltic countries. In each country there are great differences between the capitals, other cities and the country­side. The population is mostly diminishing and there are too many people that stay at the coun­tryside. Many of the cities in the Baltic countries are not well situated for the situation today. There is a heavy discussion about sustainability. What does it mean? There are many separate apprehensions about that.

Some conclusive remarks

The size of a nation. How big or small can a nation be? Is Russia too big? Remember Churchills words about Germany – Too small for the world and too big for Europe. My father had a saying like this. It is better with a small blessed part, than with a big damned part. This is valid for permanent houses, summer houses, nations and organisations. Where are the optimal borders for a union like the EU? The expansion of EU will probably lead to subregions.

Regional politics. The history is full of examples of failures in regional politics. The costs have been very high and the effects rather small and short-lived. Is the EU the right level for spreading out resources? Are there other means than financial for regional policy? At what level do you have the right ability? Today more work is used to have money back from the union than to assemble the money for paying in to the union. Åland was mentioned as a successful example of regional politics. But the situation of Åland has been very special, so it is doubtful whether this is a good example.

The Baltic Sea Region. Why do we have those borders for BSR today? The ground for the borders of the region today is built upon the watershed around the Baltic. That is why Byelo­russia is a part of the region today, without being very interested of that as it looks. Is it good to be a region? It is rather obvious that culture is important for making a region even if it is import­ant to have respect for cultural differences. How to come back to that region that BSR was in historical times? One way is to build up competence in daily management. One good example of that is the cooperation between the county of Södermanland in Sweden and the Region of Jelgava in Latvia. Education is one good way if there is a real demand for it. A lot of countries and people want to educate the people in the Baltic countries today. If this shall be successful there is a need for coordination of all attempts. There are for instance experiences in education in total defence from Sweden. First civil servants in the Baltics were asked to come to Sweden for education. This implied that elderly, higher ranked people came to Sweden. They were most interested of going abroad. Later on the education was centralised to the Baltic Defence College at Tartu in Estonia. The difference in result was great.

The importance of positive and honest politicians/statesmen

In the USA they have a saying like – A statesman thinks of the next generation – A politician thinks of the next election. There is a lack of statesmen today. I have had the possibility to follow the development of peoples’ thinking in the Soviet Union from 1962 until the collapse of the union. In 1962 there was a feeling of solidarity and no signs of prostitution or black market. In 1965 the prostitution had started and there were black markets. In 1979 everything was for sale and everybody were thinking of themselves. In 17 years it looked like the Soviet Union had gone from being a union of social solidarity to a nation of fixers. It was more a question of when than if the union should collapse. The politicians seemed to be very corrupt.