Will Estonia join Nordic Council within the next 50 years (as full member)?

[TDAS04]

Well?

[politicus]

No, it would make the problem we already have with Finns de facto not being a part of the Scandinavian linguistic community even harder. The linguistic community is one of the pillars of the Nordic Council (even if its increasingly a fiction).

(forever is a long time, so I am talking about the next 50 years or so - if you really mean ever, that is impossible to answer)

[TDAS04]

No, it would make the problem we already have with Finns de facto not being a part of the Scandinavian linguistic community even harder. The linguistic community is one of the pillars of the Nordic Council (even if its increasingly a fiction).

(forever is a long time, so I am talking about the next 50 years or so - if you really mean ever, that is impossible to answer)

Though Estonia's population is pretty small.

Anyway, I'll adjust the wording of the question to "next 50 years".

[ingemann]

No, it would make the problem we already have with Finns de facto not being a part of the Scandinavian linguistic community even harder. The linguistic community is one of the pillars of the Nordic Council (even if its increasingly a fiction).

(forever is a long time, so I am talking about the next 50 years or so - if you really mean ever, that is impossible to answer)

Though Estonia's population is pretty small.

Anyway, I'll adjust the wording of the question to "next 50 years".

Yes but the population of the Nordic countries are also quite small. politicus do bring up the language element, here we have to remember that Finland have Swedish as one of its official languages and all Finnish children learn Swedish in school, Faroese, Greenlanders and Icelanders who also don't speak languages which is mutual intelligible with the Swedish-Danish-Norwegian (Bokmål) language community (East Scandinavian), learn Danish in their schools.

While a Estonian are more likely to learn East Scandinavian (in this context mostly Swedish) than most other people around the world, it's still a very small minority who learn it (3% of Estonian students). So while the Estonians feel a close relationship toward the Nordic Countries and the Nordic Countries are very friendly toward Estonia, something is lacking and Estonia are by all other Nordic Countries other than Finland seen as a Baltic country, not a Nordic one.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Since they are all part of Schengen and the EEA, is there anything the Nordic Council actually does these days besides complementing each other on being Nordic?

[politicus]

Since they are all part of Schengen and the EEA, is there anything the Nordic Council actually does these days besides complementing each other on being Nordic?

They still have projects in a wide range of areas, but often in cooperation with other organizations or countries. And there is a Nordic Culture Foundation. Cultural cooperation is the backbone of the organization, which is why I think Estonia will remain outside.

http://www.norden.org/en/om-samarbejdet-1/areas-of-co-operation

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

eesti can into nordic

[politicus]

eesti can into nordic

[ingemann]

I could have been really interesting if the Estonian Swedes had survived as a viable group after WW2 (they're not extinct not even in Estonia, but they make up less than an per mille of Estonia's population now), but as they have not, there really lack a connection beside historical and religious (and that doesn't count for much today) between Estonia and the western Baltic.

[CatoMinor]

Is it even possible to be part of the Nordic Council without having a variation of their cross flag?

[politicus]

I could have been really interesting if the Estonian Swedes had survived as a viable group after WW2 (they're not extinct not even in Estonia, but they make up less than an per mille of Estonia's population now), but as they have not, there really lack a connection beside historical and religious (and that doesn't count for much today) between Estonia and the western Baltic.

The Estonia Swedes were 0,7% of the population, so that wouldn't have made a difference.

[politicus]

Is it even possible to be part of the Nordic Council without having a variation of their cross flag?

Yes, Greenland is a member.

[ingemann]

I could have been really interesting if the Estonian Swedes had survived as a viable group after WW2 (they're not extinct not even in Estonia, but they make up less than an per mille of Estonia's population now), but as they have not, there really lack a connection beside historical and religious (and that doesn't count for much today) between Estonia and the western Baltic.

The Estonia Swedes were 0,7% of the population, so that wouldn't have made a difference.

I disagree somewhat, while I don't think they would have much influence in Estonian politics (through the fact that they was poor and rural, could have resulted in their population increasing faster than the Estonian one), I think they would have served as middlemen between Sweden and Estonia, making Sweden invest more in Estonia both Economical, but also cultural.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is it even possible to be part of the Nordic Council without having a variation of their cross flag?

Yes, Greenland is a member.

Greenland is the colony of a country with a cross flag though.

[AkSaber]

But they could.

[politicus]

Is it even possible to be part of the Nordic Council without having a variation of their cross flag?

Yes, Greenland is a member.

Greenland is the colony of a country with a cross flag though.

Its not a colony. Its an autonomous country within the Danish realm and recognized as a sovereign people.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Perhaps Germany should join?

[Angel of Death]

http://satwcomic.com/new-nordic

[Vosem]

The linguistic argument against it seems weak to me, since Finland is a member. To be honest, I don't know why Estonia shouldn't be allowed to join, or even all three Baltic states.

[politicus]

The linguistic argument against it seems weak to me, since Finland is a member. To be honest, I don't know why Estonia shouldn't be allowed to join, or even all three Baltic states.

Swedish is an official language in Finland, which has a Swedish speaking minority and Finlands historical and cultural community with Sweden is of a completely different order than Estonia's.

(among other things: same state until 1809 with Swedish remaining the language of most of the elite in the 19th century and more than 1 mio. Swedes with Finnish background + Åland Islands are purely Swedish speaking etc.)

The working languages of the Nordic Council are Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, not English and switching to English would damage the whole idea of a special relationship between those particular countries.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

\Could they have some sort of "observer status"? if they really want in

[politicus]

\Could they have some sort of "observer status"? if they really want in

They do already. Since 1991.