After opening the Smart Regions 2.0 Conference on 1st June in Helsinki, Commissioners Corina Cretu and Jyrki Katainen visited a Flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) in Helsinki.

The project "ChemSAR", funded by the transnational Interreg Baltic Sea Region programme, aims at creating uniform operational plans and standard operational procedures across the Baltic Sea Region to save human lives in maritime incidents.

On board a Finnish Border Guard Offshore Patrol Vessel and other cooperation in maritime safety activities around the Baltic Sea were presented. Also another Interreg funded Flagship of the EUSBSR, "DiveSMART" project, was presented: DiveSMART focuses on cooperation between rescue divers from around the Baltic Sea to make them ready to join forces and operate together in case of large scale ship accidents such as the one of Costa Concordia or the Estonia.

Both EUSBSR Flagship projects demonstrate how macro-regional cooperation contributes to increased safety and security of the citizens in the Baltic Sea Region.

Read more about the visit on ChemSAR blog.

Photos by Peter Schenk