On April 1, the Department of Political Science and International Relations hosted H. E. Bård Ivar Svendsen, Norwegian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, to discuss Norway's participation in regional integration processes. Before his lecture, he met with Professor Hamlet Isaxanli, the founder of Khazar University and Chairman of its Board of Directors and Trustees.
He started his speech by providing historical background on the factors that shaped Norway's policies in the Nordic region. He then discussed relations between Norway and the European Union, which are defined through the agreement on the European Economic Area granting Norway, which is not a member state of the EU, access to the EU internal market. He also spoke about factors that have influenced Norway's unwillingness to become part of the EU, the Nordic-Baltic cooperation, the Arctic Council, and the Barents Cooperation.