Yesterday, 26 October, the EU countries agreed to adopt a common strategy for the Baltic Sea region. Sweden’s Minister for EU Affairs Cecilia Malmström is delighted with the decision, and thinks that it will be of crucial significance for the region’s environment, prosperity and competitiveness in the future.

The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is one of the Swedish Presidency’s priority issues and a pilot project for a new form of cooperation in the Union. It involves better coordinating resources and funds to address specific regional challenges. For the Baltic Sea region, which can be seen as something of a pilot region for this form of cooperation, it means increased focus on saving the sensitive marine environment and strengthening the region’s competitiveness.

“I am very pleased that the whole of the EU is behind this strategy. Now we can work together much more clearly to strengthen the Baltic Sea region environmentally, but also to improve growth and coordination on security issues”, says Minister for EU Affairs Cecilia Malmström.

Other regions want to follow

Since the major eastern enlargement in 2004, eight of the nine countries around the Baltic are members of the EU. Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, many consider that the conditions for cooperation have rarely been better. The initiative for the strategy came from the EU’s heads of state and government almost two years ago, and the aim is for the same cooperation model to be applied to other EU regions in the future. The Danube region has already begun working on a similar strategy and the Black Sea region has also expressed an interest.

Cecilia Malmström is now looking forward to seeing concrete results of all the projects that fall under the Baltic Sea Strategy. Projects such as reducing the use of fertilisers in agriculture and phasing out phosphates in washing powder in order to reduce eutrophication of the sea in the long term, or improving cooperation between universities and increasing the mobility of students and researchers within the region. Other projects include reducing the risk of oil leaks by creating ‘sea motorways’, coordinating the different countries maritime surveillance, and taking common action against human trafficking.

Results important

“During the autumn I hope that we will see tangible results of the work on the Baltic Sea Strategy. It is a matter of the countries carrying out the plans they have committed to deliver, and also of the EU continuing its regular monitoring of how the strategy is followed up, even after the Swedish Presidency”, says Cecilia Malmström.

The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region will be on the agenda for the European Council meeting in Brussels on 29–30 October, when the EU heads of state and government are expected to comment on what form the future work on the strategy should take.