With the approval by the European Commission on the 15 February, the revision process of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) Action Plan has concluded and the implementation can accelerate. The New Action Plan will be more focused, support closer cooperation among stakeholders and support the achievement of targets set in the EU policies and UN sustainable Development Agenda.

The revised Action Plan of the EUSBSR is more focused, with 14 Policy areas and 44 actions. In the new Action Plan, the former Horizontal action Spatial Planning has been transformed into Policy area. Addressing climate change and cooperation with neighbours is mainstreamed in all other policy areas. All policy areas are interlinked and contribute to all 3 objectives of the Strategy.

The Policy area Spatial Planning aims to increase territorial coherence in BSR by building a region that is better integrated and more coherent. The Policy area Spatial Planning has two actions: 1. Strengthening the territorial cohesion in the BSR through land-based spatial planning and 2. Ensuring coherent maritime spatial plans throughout the Baltic Sea.

In line with the new Action Plan, the Baltic Sea Strategy Point is being set up. It will support the National Coordinators group in its work, ensure capacity building, knowledge-sharing and communication activities. Presumably, the BSP will be operational in 2022. As an interim solution for the BSP in 2021 Let’s Communicate project will be enlarged with most essential activities to not to lose any expertise during this interim period and build the institutional memory of the EUSBSR.

Get to know the new EUSBSR Action Plan here.

Read the press release from EC here.