The Nordic Cooperation, including Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway, Island, Finland, Denmark and three autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Aland Islands, is an example of too close regional cooperation in social, political, economic, cultural, environmental and other areas. The Nordic countries introduced a visa-free regime (1952), created a common labour market (1954) and formed a joint social space (1955) earlier than it was done within the EEC/EU. Thus, all citizens of the region were granted equal social and economic rights under the Convention on Social Protection of 1955 [1, P. 391]. As far as is known, three of the countries considered in the article (Denmark, Finland and Sweden) are members of the European Union. In contrast, Island and Norway are members of the European Economic Area (EEA).

It is no great exaggeration to note that today the level of interstate relations among the Nordic countries in several fields mentioned above is higher than in many other integration groups including the European Union [2, P. 631]. According to the professor Voronkov L.S. from MGIMO University "based on the achievements of northern European integration it is possible to estimate the main directions of further development of the EU integration processes" [3, P. 3, 21]. Geographical proximity, cultural and historical, ethnic, religious and linguistic community of peoples became essential prerequisites for successful integration in the Northern Europe The Nordic countries have a rich common historical past, at which point cultural rapprochement and social interaction began. It may be enough to cite the famous Kalmar Union of 1397-1523 and Swedish-Norwegian Union of 1814-1905 to draw examples.

The indigenous population of the region is mainly Lutheran. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese are derived from old Norse. The first three languages are so similar that their native speakers can understand each other quite easily. At the same time, 80% of the population of the region speaks these languages. Thus, it is the culture predominantly related to the states of this region that is the successful basis of northern integration.