A FEW days ago, I flew to Copenhagen on a mission to dig a little deeper into how Danish politicians have been dealing with Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland – and how Danes have felt about the way in which the US president has treated the kingdom since the turn of the year.

There will be more on that to come in this week’s edition of the Sunday National, but while I’ve been here I got a brilliant opportunity to visit the Scottish Government Nordics office, based within the British Embassy in the city.

It was fascinating to learn how the people within this little hidey hole in Copenhagen – complete with Saltires still hanging around the door after pipping Denmark to the post in World Cup qualification – are at the heart of making so many important connections between Scotland and the five Nordic nations of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland.

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The office was set up in 2022, and it makes a lot of sense given four of the five Nordic countries – barring Iceland – are in Scotland’s top 20 export destinations. You really can’t put a price on how valuable the work being done by this team is to Scotland’s economy and standing in the world.

The three main areas of focus are energy, culture, and social policy.

Clearly, energy is a massive part of the operation. Much offshore wind development is impossible without significant collaboration with the Nordic nations, and there are huge people-to-people links in the oil and gas industry between Scotland and Scandinavia.

If you go to oil and gas centres like Stavanger in Norway or Esbjerg in Denmark, you will find a lot of Scots working there. The same goes for Norwegians in Aberdeen.

For the offshore industry, there are so many factors that need to fall into place and interlink – offtake, decent pricing, good regulatory infrastructure. It seems as though the Scottish Government having this base in Denmark gives the nation a real boost in exporting key skills and understanding what other governments want out of the energy set-up in the North Sea.

Elsewhere, there are some fascinating connections being made on a cultural level.

Screen Scotland began going to Denmark for the CPH:DOX documentary film festival in 2021, and since then, the Scottish Government Nordics team has been working with the organisation. Scottish filmmakers and producers have benefitted enormously.

Scottish Government Nordics hosts a matchmaking dinner to allow those in the Scottish film industry to connect with commissioners and buyers in Denmark – and of the 13 projects brought over last year, around half received interest.

Denmark also had its biggest showing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year. There will be be Swedish films at Glasgow Film Festival. The cultural connections just keep on growing.

Finally, there is also a focus on social policy and how Scotland can learn from the Nordic nations – and vice versa.

At the moment, there is a major issue in Sweden with young people being recruited into gangs, which Scotland is credited with having tackled well over time. The Scottish Government Nordics team recently hosted a Swedish parliamentary delegation so they could learn more about how Scotland has broken the back of the issue.

At the same time, Denmark is increasingly looking to take care out of hospitals and into communities and GP services, much like how Scotland is looking to open a network of walk-in GP centres, so there is a lot of opportunity for sharing policy approaches here.

The set-up is a fine example of how nations of a similar size and demographic can collaborate and learn from each other, so the small, independent nations of Northern Europe can thrive and perform to their best.