We need to demonstrate results

What are next steps for the Baltic Sea Region strategy? Colin Wolfe, one of the EU Commission’s central strategists on the macroregional Baltic Sea Region strategy, is not in doubt: We have to show results. We have to make the strategy an integrated part of all EU programming in the area. And, he says, we have to develop cooperation with Russia.

”We have to be able to demonstrate that the algae that bloom in the Baltic sea are reduced, that there are transport links so that the goods from the North can get down to the South…”

Colin Wolfe, Head of Unit at the EU-Commission’s Directorate-General for regional policy, wants to see results, fast, – in many areas: in environment, in transport, in private sector development….

“We have to deal with the fact that many small enterprises that would like to export across borders don’t do it at the moment”.

To strengthen the strategy, more should be done to integrate it into all types of initiatives:

”For the upcoming period we will put a great deal of emphasis on making sure that the Baltic work is fully part of all programming and of all facets of project selection that they are producing.We want to make absolutely certain that the Baltic Sea Region strategy is enlisted into all levels of policy making”.

Russia

Russia is not explicitly a part of the Baltic Sea Region strategy, but in Colin Wolfe’s view good relations with Russia are ”absolutely crucial” to its success

”There is quite good contact between the regions around the Baltic Sea”, he says and points especially to the fact that Hamburg, St. Peterburg and Kaliningrad have been in contact, and that there are projects in place to reduce  the pollution into the Baltic Sea in the Leningrad  oblast.

But cooperation with Russsian regions and cities has to take place within a centrally defined framework: ”We cooperate with the authorities in Moscow, at state level, so that we can have a good framework as part of the overall EU-Russia relations”.

”We have to recognize that our Russian friends have their own interest in the Baltic Sea. To them this is an important transport link and very important area in itself, and we have to accommodate their interests as well as the interests we have laid out very clearly”, says Colin Wolfe.

It seems to be very important to the Russian side, that cooperation in the Baltic Sea area is seen as part of the Northern Dimension – a common policy framework set up in 1999, where the the EU and Russia are equal partners (together with Norway and Iceland).

”But there are many things which are of common interest – easier crossing of frontiers, easier trade, easier mobility. These are things we are working on in a concrete way”.