The New Northern Europe

Globalisation of the economy and political integration create new conditions and imperatives for managing businesses and national economies and lead to new forms of economic regionalism, making the regional perspective an important dimension in strategic thinking and action. The New Northern Europe is emerging as a potentially viable strategic concept for northern countries and corporations. As a regional economy, the New Northern Europe still has a fairly weak and fragmented identity, and there is very little strategic co-operation among the actors involved to develop this regional economy. Many great challenges and political uncertainties remain as concerns with regards to the objective to strengthen the institutional preconditions for economic integration and to eliminate the respective barriers. Despite the many factors of inertia, the natural economic integration within the New Northern Europe is progressing. Accelerating this development can provide great potentials for those involved, but it also requires genuine and visionary long-term co-operation among the various categories and levels of actors.

The book has also been published in Finnish (Sitra 179).