Nordic Council
![Nordic Council session in Helsinki, Finland (October 2012)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Nordiska_Radet_session_i_Helsingfors_29.10.2012_%284%29.jpg)
The
Nordic Council is the official body for formal inter-parliamentary Nordic cooperation among the
Nordic countries. Formed in 1952, it has 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden as well as from the autonomous areas of the
Faroe Islands,
Greenland, and
Åland. The representatives are members of parliament in their respective countries or areas and are elected by those parliaments. The Council holds ordinary sessions each year in October/November and usually one extra session per year with a specific theme. The council's official languages are
Danish,
Finnish,
Icelandic,
Norwegian, and
Swedish, though it uses only the mutually intelligible
Scandinavian languages—Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish—as its
working languages. These three comprise the first language of around 80% of the region's population and are learned as a second or foreign language by the remaining 20%.
In 1971, the
Nordic Council of Ministers, an
intergovernmental forum, was established to complement the council. The Council and the Council of Ministers are involved in various forms of cooperation with neighbouring areas in
Northern Europe, including the
German state of
Schleswig-Holstein, the
Benelux countries and the
Baltic states.
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