If I recall my statistics correctly (but I may not, it's been a while since I checked), a unified Nordic (DK, SWE, NOR, FIN) region will control - in a more or less direct way - about a third of the global merchant marine by tonnage (biased towards heavy hulls, which means that it translates to more than a third of the global long-haul commerce capacity), the greatest or second-greatest refinery capacity outside OPEC, greatest or second-greatest mapped-out oil and gas reserves of any 'stable' region (a.k.a. outside Russia and OPEC), a very reasonable infrastructure, a respectable 25 million people (about as many as the Low Countries combined), and the principal access route to the Baltic.

Furthermore, the member countries would have sufficiently similar policies and tradition of government in most areas of importance that it should be possible to integrate swiftly.

All things considered, handled properly a Nordic union would have a considerable clout within the EU, both by virtue of being the seventh-biggest member by population (below Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain and Poland) and by virtue of having a disproportional economic strength. Of course, using that clout in a fashion that both furthers a transparent and democratic development of the Union and avoids pissing the other members off too badly will be quite a challenge. But the potential is definitely there.

The details would probably be a nightmare to hash out to everyone's satisfaction, but let's leave that for another post, as we seem to be veering just a tiny bit off topic here...

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.