Nordic model an example for Balkans

BELGRADE - The Nordic model of cooperation is achievable in the Balkans under the umbrella of the European Union, says former Norwegian minister and diplomat Thorvald Stoltenberg.

In an interview published on the official website of Norway in Serbia, Stoltenberg, 84, said that EU membership of Balkan countries would increase economic stability in the region.

"Nordic co-operation, which involves Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Aland Islands, is a model that has developed from centuries of shifting governance, alliances and rivalries to now 200 years of intra-Nordic peace," he noted.

Stoltenberg said that the title of honorary citizen of Belgrade, which he received on February 25, has not changed his relationship with the city, where he said he always felt at home.

In the early 1960s, Stoltenberg served as first secretary at the Norwegian embassy in the former Yugoslavia, and returned to Belgrade in 1993 as a UN envoy in talks on a Balkan peace plan.

Photo Tanjug, Z. Zestic (illustration, archive)