EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

Background

The 2004 enlargement has practically turned the Baltic Sea into a sea internal to the European Union. The EU has taken the increased significance of the Baltic Sea Region into account by deciding to draft its own regional strategy. This strategy is scheduled to be adopted during the Swedish presidency of the EU in the second half of 2009. The Baltic Sea Strategy aims to identify and address the most imminent challenges related to the region. In terms of policy areas, the Strategy is likely to focus on the environment, trade and business, infrastructure and (civil) security. It will probably have a time frame of ten years (until 2020) and it shall be implemented primarily by way of enhanced coordination among existing institutional frameworks and within the limits of already available financial resources.

Relevance

The Baltic Sea Strategy has the potential to serve as a future model of regional policy in the EU. It will both be an innovation and an experiment. The Strategy is innovative because it will be the first transnational strategy in the history of the EU that exceeds the scope of regional policy in the framework of sub-national and cross-border cooperation (‘Europe of Regions'), while it is not primarily targeted at third countries outside the EU (‘European Neighbourhood Policy'). Instead, the Baltic Sea Strategy indicates the emergence of a new level of governance in the EU, which is located somewhere between the supranational community level and the national level of the member states. Moreover, the Strategy is also experimental in view of the special structural characteristics of the Baltic Sea Region, a region which also includes a single non-member state – Russia. Although the EU Strategy will be designed to promote cooperation among the EU member states around the Baltic Sea, it cannot fail to take relations to Russia into consideration. It is this specific aspect of the Strategy – its constellation of internal and external aspects - which implies a number of issues that have to be addressed in order to make it a success. If successful, however, the Baltic Sea Strategy will probably become a blueprint for other macro-regional strategies within the European Union.

Research questions:

• What are the priorities of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and how will the Strategy be governed?
• What can be achieved through a Strategy that is to be implemented at the interface between supranational and national levels of governance in the EU?
• Can and should Russia, as the only non-EU country of the region, be involved in the Baltic Sea Strategy?
• What is the value added of the Strategy for the countries of the region and for the European Union as a whole?
• To what extend can the Baltic Sea Strategy be transferred and applied to other macro-regions in the European Union?

Approach and expected output

The project is designed to follow the political and administrative processes leading to the adoption of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region by the end of 2009 and to provide analytical input along the way. The European Commission launched a public consultation on the Strategy in September 2008 with the aim of identifying the principal policy areas and priority actions of the Strategy. The project will produce a research paper coinciding with the end of the consultation in February 2009 in order to take stock of the drafting process and point to aspects of the Strategy that will need further discussion. Further analysis is to be expected in connection with the presentation of the draft document of the Strategy, which the Commission is asked to deliver by June 2009, and around the time of its final adoption by the European Council during the Swedish presidency in December 2009.

Contact: Dr. Carsten Schymik