As of 1 January 2010, the Baltic 21 inter-state organisation will become formally integrated into a similar network grouping, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), and its secretariat will be incorporated into that of the CBSS.
Baltic 21 was initiated by the prime ministers of the Baltic Sea countries in 1996 as a regional expression of the global Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations “Earth Summit”, while the CBSS is an overall political forum for regional inter-governmental cooperation with the foreign ministers of eleven Baltic region states and a member of the European Commission constituting the Council. The member states are Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden. Its secretariat is in a scenic building in the Stockholm Stream.
Henceforth Baltic 21 will become an expert group within the CBSS, offering advice aimed toward enabling the sustainable development of the Baltic region. This will take the form of coordinating goals and activities between member states, while also serving as a forum for cooperation across borders and between stakeholders.
From 2010 onwards, Baltic 21 will focus on four areas: climate change, sustainable urban and rural development, sustainable consumption and production, innovation and education for sustainable development. Recommendations and advices will then be passed onto to national ministers.