On Tuesday afternoon, the Danish ambassador to The Netherlands, Jarl Frijs-Madsen, visited the first General Assembly committee (GA1) to present the relevance of the melting Arctic. After answering questions from interested delegates, MUNITY was able to speak with him about his role as an ambassador, an aspiring career of many THIMUN delegates.
MUNITY: You talked before about how you became an ambassador, but what drove you to it?
Frijs-Madsen: I was an economics student very interested in EU affairs, but I had not considered being a diplomat. When I came to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an introductory presentation with my brother, we thought it was very cool and immediately wanted to join. My brother was older than me so he joined before me and I went to visit him in Geneva. We first went to an EU coordination meeting and I was sitting in on all these negotiations and decided “Yes, I want to do this.”
MUNITY: That’s very interesting. Do you think you could quickly sum up the diplomatic relationship between the Netherlands and Denmark?
Frijs Madsen: Denmark and the Netherlands are almost as close as it gets. That means we are closely cooperating in the EU and NATO. We are like-minded countries, meaning that when there is a certain problem or challenge in the world, we solve these challenges very much in the same way. Then we are almost neighbors, there’s a small piece of land in Germany and then Denmark. We have common coastlines and energy systems so we work on all these areas and are very close corporation partners. We are also almost the same people — we love bikes and have flat and agricultural counties, so we have a lot in common.
MUNITY: What have you found is the best method to resolve conflict in a diplomatic setting, and how do members get driven to find solutions and come to agreements?
Frijs Madsen: If there is some kind of economic incentive that both parties can benefit from, then it becomes easier to solve a conflict. That is of course not always the case but very often there can be economic benefits for both countries. The other driver could be peace or that the population will be safe, which is very important. But basically, trying to present strong arguments for why both countries will be in a better situation if the conflict gets resolved peacefully is key. It is easier said than done of course but that is mostly what it is all about.
MUNITY: That must definitely be harder to accomplish than it seems. And then how have you been involved in processes to implement sustainability concerning rising sea levels?
Frijs-Madsen: The COP 15, the Conference of the Parties, the big summit that we had in Copenhagen, I was—and the whole ministry was—involved in. I also have been active in things related to the Arctic Council, because I was formerly ambassador to Norway, and we have close corporation ties. And the third element would be that we have been very progressive in exporting or presenting sustainable solutions that Denmark has found to work in the Netherlands. For example, district heating is a great way of heating which saves a lot of energy. Since Denmark has a lot of experience with it, we have two energy advisors who advise Dutch municipalities.
MUNITY: It must be so efficient to be able to share that type of specialized knowledge to benefit that planet. What key concerns is Denmark currently focused on in a broader focus?
Frijs-Madsen: Our key concern is the war in Ukraine. That is because it is a threat to us, to all of Europe. The second concern would be climate change and the world that we are facing, which is very high on our agenda. Our third concern is what is being done here at THIMUN, to preserve multilateralism. We need to continue to resolve challenges by negotiating and not by using force as we see Russia doing to Ukraine. So the UN, the EU, and all kinds of multilateral organizations are examples of what we want to work with. After all, we are a small country and want to benefit from negotiations and not war.
MUNITY: From your perspective, what do you see as potential areas for increased collaboration between Nordic countries?
Frijs-Madsen: We have said that we want the Nordic nations to be the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. We have already come a long way in aiming to become the most sustainable. Most integrated means that it is, for example, as easy to open a Danish company in Sweden as it is in Denmark. If you are a nurse, you can travel to Finland or Norway to work there, you do not need to have new training. The same goes for an architect, or for moving goods across borders. We benefit from the fact that we are all a part of the European single market, even though Norway is not in the EU, we still share a single market which helps drive the integration.
MUNITY: Have there then been a lot of legal issues in dissolving these different types of borders?
Frijs-Madsen: Yes. I mean not so much that it is like “We’ll take you to court” but it is definitely that you run into a situation like “Sorry, but you’re not able to do this because of this license.” It is not that anything is being disputed but it is definitely that companies are being disappointed. The Nordic Council has made a list of measures that need to be solved and unfortunately, it is more than a thousand, but they are taking them one by one, aiming to remove these restrictions.
MUNITY: What has been the most significant issue that you have helped resolve in your career?
Frijs-Madsen: In 1993 when I was a young diplomat, many Eastern European countries wanted to become members of the EU, such countries were Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. The EU believed that since these countries were formerly planned economies in communism if they were added to the EU, they must adopt certain standards. Because Denmark had the EU Presidency, I began to write these requirements down. They must have a democracy, pluralism, a market economy, a rule of law, and so on. Later many others got involved in formulating the criteria. Eventually, they were adopted at the EU summit in Copenhagen in June 1993. I was the first person to start writing this up 30 years ago. That is the biggest thing I have been involved in but of course, the COP 15 and other activities have been very significant.
If there are any questions or interest in Jarl Frijs-Madsen’s work, he can be found on Instagram at @jarlfrijs
Photo by Tan Aktan
