In a way, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ (NCM) Office in Estonia can be compared with a village meeting place. Let’s say you have to move to a new village. In order to build a new house you need wood and so try to find someone who can sell you some. Then you have to find someone with an axe, furniture maker and then a good salesman who can help you get the rest of the furniture. You can go from door to door and ask for help and contacts. Or you go to the village meeting place where all the problems and questions are discussed, people sort out solutions that suit everyone and then implement them. You find all the necessary contacts, knowledge, inspiration and friends with fresh ideas.

The NCM Office in Estonia can also be compared with a double-bass in a larger musical collective, for example. One hears immediately when the double-bass is missing.

One of the main purposes of the Nordic cooperation is helping to create a strong region around the Baltic Sea (Top of Europe) that is attractive to both citizens, businesses, investors and employees. Nowadays, the NCM offices mostly contribute to fulfilling the common goals of eight nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland), enhancing the development of the joint Baltic Sea Region. Our mission is to promote everything Nordic, introduce the Nordic cooperation as such as well as manage cooperation projects and programmes. For example, the NCM Office in Estonia coordinates the Nordic-Baltic mobility programme for public administration and Nordic-Baltic NGO support programme.

In addition we promote the Nordic-Baltic cooperation with Nordic Forums and lecture series introducing the possibilities of creative industries. We also help in finding partners – a very important part of our activities since we have had feedback that it can be quite difficult to find due contacts from the Nordic countries.

Organising NCM projects and support programmes gives us a splendid opportunity to meet experts from diverse fields both from the public and private sectors as well as non-governmental organisations. The meetings have resulted in several cooperation projects in the fields of climate change, school violence, innovation, media, creative industries, etc.

In brief: we stand for promoting Nordic values in Estonia, which sees itself as part of Northern Europe. We are the ears, eyes and mouth of the Nordic countries in Estonia. We strive for creating a competitive and attractive Baltic Sea Region in the light of globalisation.