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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
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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 29-30 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
A new level in policy implementationi.a. cohesion policy • Lisabon Agenda • Community Strategic Guidelines (Structural Funds) EU Macro regional level • Macro regional strategies- EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy • National Strategic Reference Framework(Structural Funds) Member states • Regional Development Plans • StructuralFunds Program Regional level
“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 2007-2013
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’ componentbe 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
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) To be noted!
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