The Baltic Strategy has been endorsed and adopted by the heads of government in the European Council and responsibility has now been passed to “all relevant actors to act speedily and ensure full implementation of the Strategy.”
The Baltic Strategy has been endorsed and adopted by the heads of government in the European Council and responsibility has now been passed to “all relevant actors to act speedily and ensure full implementation of the Strategy.”
The European Council recently convened for a summit meeting in Brussels, at which the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region was formally adopted. The Council described the aim of the Strategy as an integrated framework to be used to address common issues, such as “the urgent environmental challenges related to the Baltic Sea, and to contribute to the economic success of the region and to its social and territorial cohesion, as well as to the competitiveness of the EU.”
A few days previously, the 27 EU foreign ministers met at the General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg, during which the Strategy was wholeheartedly endorsed and forwarded to the Council with a lengthy list of conclusions. The regional approach was heralded as an innovative and integrated mode of managing territorially specific challenges.
By June 2011 the Commission is to have presented a progress report to the Council, evaluating the Strategy. In the run up to the launch, support has been strong for the macro regional approach and hopes are high within the EU that facets of the Baltic Strategy will be replicable within other areas of the Union. Sweden has the role of coordinating the fisheries priority area.