As the delegates arrive for the Arctic Circle Forum in Edinburgh, guest speakers from Iceland, Norway and the Faroe Islands will discuss the Arctic’s assets and ask if the region has the political power it needs to develop sustainably. The discussions will be followed by an open Q&A session chaired by Lesley Riddoch; journalist and Nordic Horizons director.
- Speakers:
- Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson is the ex-leader of Iceland's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs responsible for their EEA negotiations in the 1990's. Bjørt Samuelsen is a Faroese journalist and politician. She was elected to the Løgting, the Faroese Parliament, for the first time in 2008, and served a second term in 2011. She returned to the Løgting in September 2015 when Høgni Hoydal was appointed minister of fisheries. She was the first female minister of trade and industry of the Faroe Islands, taking this role for six months in 2008. Rune Rafaelsen was Secretary General of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat for 12 years until he left in 2014 to run for elected office. In 2015 he was elected mayor of the Sør-Varanger municipality in northern Norway, the Northern-most Schengen border region with Russia.
