... defining the focus and the resources of the Barents Region. With the demise of the Cold War and the strategicrivalry with the former Soviet Union less pronounced, there is a possibility that the United ... southern linkage is the fact that the European Commission is repre-sented in the Barents Council; more recently, there has been the Finnish initiativeto strengthen the Northern Dimension of the ... Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Openness also applies to cooperation under the bilateralEnvironmental Commission, which, in the case of practical...