VASAB secretariat had the honour to host in Riga the 3rd NSB CoRe project partner meeting back-to-back with the 3rd Regional Workshop on improved accessibility along the North Sea-Baltic corridor, which took place on April 4-5, 2017. Since the project aims to improve the sustainable accessibility of the Eastern Baltic Sea Region to freight and passenger transport, the venue of the meeting provided a great opportunity to focus on the Rail Baltica project, which plays an essential role in the development of North Sea-Baltic corridor.

Mr. Agnis Driksna, representing the Latvian implementer of Rail Baltica – “Eiropas dzelzceļa līnijas” Ltd. – gave the insight to the audience about works of the Riga Railway Station and Riga Railway Bridge Sketch Competition, and Ģirts Bramans, country manager of the “RB Rail” AS, presented the overall progress of Rail Baltica implementation, which raised a true interest and live discussion with lots of country-specific questions asked about the future of the project.

Thanks to the Freeport of Riga Authority the participants of the meeting had an opportunity to visit the port and see the Vessel Traffic Service Centre, its navigation and communication systems, and the fantastic panoramic view over the port and Riga City. The greatest interest of the visitors was targeting the shipping safety issues, technical operations and traffic load of the port. Since the Freeport of Riga is an important transport node of freight and passenger transport in the Baltic Sea Region, also in the context of the NSB CoRe project, the visitors were also willing to hear about the future development plans of the port and its further integration in the regional and global transport infrastructure.

In addition to the project partner meeting, the 3rd Regional Workshop on improved accessibility along the Corridor took place with the stakeholders from relevant fields invited to discuss SWOT analyses of the North Sea-Baltic Corridor with the focus on the Baltic States. Engagement of the stakeholders gave valuable views and ideas, which will serve as an input to elaborating a joint spatial vision on regional development, logistics and mobility of the North Sea-Baltic corridor. Apart from that, one of the greatest achievements of the event was strengthening the transnational thinking with promoting discussions of the transport development not only on national, but also pan-Baltic level.

NSB CoRe: North Sea-Baltic Connector of Regions project is financed by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme and will last from 2016 to 2019. NSB CoRe is labelled EUSBSR flagship project.