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EU: Regional cooperation in Europe - Opening speech of the Baltic Sea Region Business Forum

Andris Piebalgs Energy Commissioner

/noticias.info/ Riga, 3 June 2008

President, Ministers, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased and privileged to be able to address this distinguished audience and to offer a few reflections on the issue of regional cooperation in Europe on behalf of the European Commission. I am very conscious of the fact that later today President Barroso of the European Commission will address the participants of the Baltic Sea States summit on the same issue and tomorrow the summit will have a separate discussion on the EU’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region which is currently being prepared. I will therefore restrict myself to some general observations on this subject and its relevance in the Baltic Sea Region.

I would wish to begin by congratulating the authorities in Latvia and the other organizers of our forum. I am impressed by the wide and high level participation in this forum and I am confident that the interesting themes and discussions will greatly enhance our understanding of the various challenges faced by this region and of the untapped potential there is in a variety of sectors.

Cooperation is essential for Europe, within and beyond. Cooperation is a building block of the European architecture. We have taken the decisive step of choosing to search for solutions, answers and visions through cooperation rather than confrontation. We believe this must also remain our objective for our relations with all our neighbours, near and far. As Alexander Graham Bell well noted, “Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.”

Regional cooperation aims at bringing together governments, institutions, business and people, so that those that are close to the issues to be solved or the challenges to be met, can jointly pool their creative minds and find the best way forward. This can not succeed top-down. For this, Europe is too diverse linguistically, economically, politically and culturally. The European Union does not exist for its institutions, nor for its Member States and not even for its business. It was created and continues to exist for the sake and benefit of its people. Europe is not made by decisions of the executive; it is developed by its people. We want to assist in any way we can for creating the right conditions for this type of cooperation to flourish within the European Union and with our neighbouring partners. If people work together, then people are able also to engage better in profitable business activities and, in the end, we will all be better off.

The European Union covers a vast territory. The regions within the EU differ, as do the realities across the external borders in different regions. We have witnessed the development of a number of models of external regional cooperation – the Northern Dimension, the Black Sea Synergy and now, most recently, the Union for the Mediterranean. All of these models or approaches are tailor-made to meet the requirements of their own region. But they all share the same philosophy of working together at all levels through partnership for progress.

I would wish to now to focus on the region where we are today: the Baltic Sea Region.

For regional cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, we should take account of the Northern Dimension Policy, the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the emerging EU Strategy for the Region. I fully acknowledge that, in addition to these aspects, there is also a rich variety of other processes taking place in the region, but I do believe that these three will be the cornerstones for our future work.

The Northern Dimension policy is now a genuinely joint undertaking by the European Union, Iceland, Norway and the Russian Federation. We are very content with the results achieved during the first year and a half of implementation of the revised policy and we look forward to the upcoming first Ministerial Meeting during the French Presidency in the second half of this year. At the core of the Northern Dimension thinking is the concept of a “Partnership”. We have thus far created two successful partnerships on Environment and Health and are currently working with a view to determining the feasibility of a Partnership on Transport and Logistics. Also culture has been mentioned as one potential area of cooperation.

The CBSS is an important actor in the region and I am confident that the Summit today and tomorrow will be able to reach crucial decisions, which will allow the necessary reform of the organization to take place so that it can adapt to new realities. There is still much work to be done in the region and we believe that for many issues the CBSS will be the right organization to address them. The CBSS stretches across a wide variety of policy sectors and brings together all Governments in the region. The challenge for the Summit is to acknowledge the fact that times have changed since the creation of the organization and it must change with the times. It must streamline its work, it must focus its work better and it must embark on quest for added value and competitive edge. This will not be an easy mission, but I would wish to assure everyone here today that the European Commission, as full member of the CBSS, is determined to participate actively in this process. The CBSS should become more project oriented, but, for this to succeed, there must be willingness to identity resources and mobilize them. The European Community can do its share, but much rests with the Governments in the region themselves. They must increase their financial contributions if indeed they believe that the CBSS is an actor which can get the job done.

And, for the numerous representatives of the business community present today, I would also wish to underline the importance of public-private partnerships and encourage you to consider ways of the supporting the valuable work of the CBSS.

The European Council in December of last year asked the Commission to prepare an EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region to, inter alia, address the urgent environmental challenges in the region. The Commission has commenced intense internal work to reach this objective. In addition, we have discussed and solicited views from a great number of diverse stakeholders in the region. We will continue this process in a very transparent fashion, remaining receptive to all ideas and suggestions from all interested stakeholders. As I already noted, Europe can not be governed top-down. Neither will the EU Strategy for the Region.

The work accomplished so far has indicated that there is genuine will in the region to move from political statements to concrete action on the ground. The four objectives so far identified in the process are:

1) To make the Baltic Sea region a prosperous place;

2) To make the Baltic Sea Region an accessible and attractive place;

3) To make the Baltic Sea region a safe and secure place, and

4) To make the Baltic Sea Region an environmentally clean place.

If I were to try and summarize the main messages that I have attempted to convey in my presentation today, I would list them as follows:

1. Try to strive for genuine jointness, ensure the transparency process and seek to cooperate in order to create benefits for all sides;

2. Learn from past experiences, study how regional cooperation has been constructed elsewhere but retain flexibility to find a solution that fits this region;

3. Encourage actors to be innovative, to search for new solutions and pool resources;

4. Make all efforts to avoid overlap and be brave enough to rationalize bearing in mind that what was once established does not need to continue if the realities around it have changed.

I call upon all of you here today to pool our resources and our creative minds in making the Baltic Sea Region a better place for us all. Environmentally clean, safe, secure, prosperous and accessible region will ensure that business can flourish and our citizens can fulfil their ambitions. We must free ourselves from past and from old modes of thinking. We must be creative. We must pave the way and we must create conditions for something new to emerge. Business community can and should bring its contribution to our common efforts to reaching this objective.

Thank you for your attention. notas_de_prensa_archivo