Christina Skantze

Baltic Sea Strategy initiative – why? New political context for cooperation – EU-enlargement, integration Underline priorities and pressure to deliver More strategic use of EU-funding Urgent state of the Baltic sea Unused potential for growth EU policy development to take territorial differences into account – Lisbon treaty, Territorial green paper, Territorial Agenda

Baltic Sea Strategy – what? Commission Communication on 10 June *Strategy identifying 4 objectives *Action Plan identifying around 80 projects - rolling and updated regularly Ministerial Conference and Joint Declaration 18 Sept General Affairs conclusions on 26 Oct. European Council adoption Oct.

Baltic Sea Strategy – how? Existing EU-funding, existing organisations An EU governance structure for delivery: General Affairs Council responsible Commission to facilitate, monitor, update, evaluate, report High level group Coordinators for 15 Priority Areas of Action Plan Lead Partners for flagship projects

Baltic Sea Strategy – how? Aligned EU-funding – EU-programs in the BSR contribute to the realisation of the Strategy The European Investment Bank and other international and regional financial institution could also contribute

EU Macro regional level Member states Regional level Regional Development Plans Structural Funds Program Lisabon Agenda Community Strategic Guidelines (Structural Funds) Macro regional strategies - EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy National Strategic Reference Framework (Structural Funds) A new level in policy implementation i.a. cohesion policy

“A pro-active response” Action Plan projects identified as most important for the BSR – pre-selection BSR Program to identify most suitable projects (flagships) to support (environ., innovation) *work with them (strategic project-model) *Outside regular selection (change progr.docs) Add Strategy contribution to selection criteria Secure alignment of funding Actively contributing with analyses of what projects are needed to rolling action plan Systematic info sharing among Interreg-programs

“Baltic Sea Region” trans-national cooperation programme

Why is the interregional component art 37.6b useful? Bilateral (trilateral) co-operation Parallell projects Common themes identified in participating Operational Programmes

How can the ’interregional’ component be used? Managing Athorities to play a major role Facilitate preparation of interregional co- operation projects for the beneficiaries Concentrate on themes common to financing OPs Few MAs to be involved only 2-3 from at least 2 countries

To be noted! Interregional co-operation can occur even if the Operational programmes do not mention it explicitly as long as the projects fit in within its priorities 4 Member States in the Baltic Sea Region have the ’interregional’ component in their Operational Programmes (ie. 21 programmes)

MAs discussions in Sweden Difficult to see and understand the added value with this article as we can already co-operate interregionally There is a need for guidelines from the Commission How to find partners abroad Which costs can be financed For the time being there is 1project using art 37.6b

Conclusions Art 37.6b exists and can be useful We cannot wait for guidelines from the Commission We have to be creative and find solutions and then ask the Commission

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