International Summer School on Sustainable Futures in the Baltic Sea Region
VASAB is looking for ideas of young planners and regional developers (students and practitioners) on sustainable futures in the Baltic Sea Region. Are interested in participating the the 5-day International Summer School in Greifswald, Germany in August 2022? Apply until 30th of April!
More info: https://vasab.org/young-planners/
New PA Ship coordinator wishes to enhance cooperation to promote the sustainability of shipping industry
Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom has taken over the role of Lead Policy Area Coordinator in the Policy Area Ship. The National Coordinators Group appointed Finland as a new Lead PAC starting from 1 January 2022. Traficom replaced Danish Maritime Authority that withdrew from the PAC role. As a result of the DMA´s previous work, this policy area is already well established that enables a smooth transmission of the associated tasks.
Traficom has been a Co-PAC in PA Safe for several years. Therefore, the new role in PA Ship was easy for the agency to accept.
- The activities of PA Safe and PA Ship are also strongly interlinked, both focus on maritime environment and shipping activities around the Baltic Sea region. We have already worked closely together on themes like digitalization, autonomous shipping and green transitioning. All of these areas require strong cross-border cooperation and macro-regional strategy provides a natural forum for working together, says the PA coordinator Valtteri Laine from Traficom.
In the future, the aim of PA Ship is to further strengthen the maritime cooperation across the EU Baltic Sea member stages, HELCOM and different macro-regional strategies to achieve the ambitious goals of the Fit for 55 package. Due to the war in Ukraine, all cooperation in this context with the Russian Federation has now been terminated. That is why it is out most important that all EU countries do their best and work together to reduce greenhouse gases and other marine pollutions for the sake of next generations.
Statement by the National Coordinators Group of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region concerning the suspension of cooperation with Russia and Belarus
Referring to the European Council conclusions of 24 February 2022 on Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine, the cooperation with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus within the framework of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) shall be suspended.
The National Coordinators Group (NCG) of the EUSBSR shall not support any actions of the Policy Areas of the EUSBSR that would include the Russian Federation and/or the Republic of Belarus as observers/ partners/ members of the Steering Groups of the Policy Areas and in any other capacity. The Policy Areas of the EUSBSR shall also make sure that the cooperation to date is suspended with immediate effect and new partnerships with these countries shall not be created.
The NCG shall ensure the proper adjustment of the functioning of the EUSBSR in these changed circumstances.
Call for EU Macro-Regional Strategies Week stakeholder sessions is open
EU MRS week launches a call for stakeholder sessions. This matches well with this year’s motto Engage, Empower, Evolve.
The third EU MRS Week will take place from 7 to 11 March 2022. Various stakeholders from the EU and beyond are invited to propose their own sessions to the programme. The proposed sessions need to focus on one of the topics of the week: Youth, European Green Deal and Social Innovation.
Proposals with a cross-MRS approach, which are inspiring, replicable and clearly related to the key objectives of at least one of the four macro-regions will have higher chances to be selected. See the instructions for the applicants and submit your proposal by 6 February 2022.