Vucāns Report from BSPC President

Final version 24 August 2016Report from the BSPC President, Prof. Dr. Jānis VucānsSession 1: Cooperation in the Baltic Sea RegionThank you Mister Chairman – ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, honourable guests,(Once again a warm welcome to Riga and our 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.)It is the honourable duty of the BSPC President to provide the delegates of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference with a report on the activities throughout the past year. The following issues – from my point of view – clearly stand out when I think about this last year:The BSPC has had a clear thematic focus, with excellent expert presentations and discussions on the main theme of the work programme, namely education and labour market, as well as a fruitful exchange of experiences about the dealing with the refugee crisis in our home countries;Members of the BSPC Standing Committee travelled to Minsk in April to investigate ways to start a process of contacts and discussions about common issues with the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus;The BSPC has revised the way it approaches the governments with its resolutions, and the response from the governments to the 24th BSPC resolution has been more comprehensive than ever before – BSPC-Vice-president Carola Veit from Hamburg will say a few more words about this during the 1st session, also under the aspect to investigate even more closely in the future how the resolutions of the BSPC were implemented by our governments.The conference in Rostock last year passed the Work Programme 2015-2016, in which we identified education, the labour market and labour mobility as core issues of our work. Accordingly, we picked our experts to brief us on this topic, which is of such great importance for the future of the development of our region and the wellbeing of our people.The first Standing Committee under the Latvian Chairmanship took place here in Riga. Invited experts were the Parliamentary Secretary of the Latvian Ministry of Education, Mr Edvards Smiltens, and the President of the Council of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Aigars Rostovskis. Mr Smiltens spoke about Latvians priorities in education, most importantly in vocational training and education. Latvia deems the strengthening of the prestige of vocational training and education a priority, as it is part of the innovation system. Ultimately, it should be the goal of higher education to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurship of students to become entrepreneurs, create jobs, provide new products and services and thus expand the national as well as global labour market.Mr Rostovskis later added in his contribution that the Baltic Sea Region should position itself as a global hub for education and innovation, both in order to provide students with the skills to start their own businesses and, consequently, to further the prosperity and wellbeing in the region.The next Standing Committee meeting took us to Brussels at the invitation of the President of the European Parliament, Mr Martin Schulz, and the Chairman of the EP’s SINEA delegation, Jorn Dohrmann. It has been a good tradition for the BSPC to hold its winter meeting in Brussels to meet with important stakeholders from the European level and to inform our work accordingly. The meeting was greeted by EP Vice President Anneli Jäätteenmäki, who is also responsible for Baltic, and Nordic and Arctic Affairs. The Vice President underlined that the EP regards the EU SBSR and the Northern Dimension as focal points for regional cooperation in the BSR and in Northern Europe, to which all partners should commit, and encouraged the BSPC Standing Committee to explore possibilities for addressing still existing challenges with regard to cooperation in the region, and to raise awareness on successful cooperation.The invited expert was the Head of the “Modernisation of social protection systems” Unit from the Commission’s DG Employment, Ms Maria Luisa Cabral. The expert highlighted the economic benefits of labour mobility in Europe, while also acknowledging its downsides. She stressed that the Commission regarded the free movement of workers as a key pillar of the internal market. In the political guidelines for the new Commission, President Juncker had therefore highlighted both that free movement is an economic opportunity rather than a threat, and that national authorities had the right to fight abuse of social security systems. Therefore, the Commission’s 2016 Work Programme includes a labour mobility package, which includes proposals for a targeted revision of the Posting of Workers Directive, as well as the revision of the social security coordination rules. The aim was to deliver a balanced approach to labour mobility, combining the protection of mobile workers and the fight against social security abuse. Both elements of the package have been subject to full impact assessment and consultation with stakeholders. The expert made it clear that the exact timing of the labour mobility package would also depend on the political context, namely ongoing discussions in the European Council.On March 2016, the Commission presented a proposal for a targeted revision of the Posting of Workers Directive, defining a set of mandatory rules regarding the terms and conditions of employment to be applied to posted workers. It provides that the principle of equal treatment with local workers will also cover posted temporary agency workers, thereby aligning the current legislation on temporary agency work.In accordance with the subsidiarity control mechanism, the Commission re-examined its proposal in order to decide whether to withdraw, amend or maintain it. Before taking its decision, the Commission engaged in political dialogue with national Parliaments and with the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union.At the end of July the Commission adopted a Communication re-examining its proposal for a revision of the Posting of Workers Directive in the context of the subsidiarity control mechanism that several national parliaments, including part of BSPC countries, triggered in May. After intensive consideration of their views, the Commission concluded that the proposal for a revision of the Directive does not constitute a breach of the subsidiarity principle.Ladies and gentlemen,It is ideal and couldn’t be more up-to-date that we have the Vice-president of the European Commission and former Minister-president of Latvia, Mr Valdis Dombrovskis, who is responsible for this policy area as the next speaker in our conference. Thank you once more Mr Dombrovskis that you are here and speak to us about the current development in this policy area. I appreciate this very much.In Brussels we also made good on our promise to liaison with our partners, most importantly the CBSS. I am thankful for Ambassador Czyż (– who is also here today –) to have briefed us on the activities of the Polish CBSS Presidency. Today there will be a follow-up by Mr Guðmundur Árni Stefánsson about the Icelandic CBSS priorities. I’m very grateful for the close collaboration between our two organizations and I am happy to welcome the new Director-General of the CBSS, Ms Maira Mora, experienced Latvian diplomat, for the 1st time in our conference.Let me express at this point also a special gratitude to the former Director-General of the CBSS for his close, trustful and very intensive long-standing cooperation with the BSPC.The Standing Committee of BSPC then held its final meeting before the Riga Conference in Liepaja, where we received expertises by Ilya Ermakov, Senior Adviser in Economic Cooperation, Maritime Policy, Energy at the CBSS Secretariat, and Dr. Uwe Sassenberg, Project leader of the International Project “Baltic Tram”. Mr Ermakov provided the meeting with some general information about the Baltic Sea Labour Forum as well as recent events and activities, as the CBSS Secretariat is lead and coordinator of the Baltic Sea Labour Forum. Dr. Uwe Sassenberg briefed the parliamentarians on the Baltic TRAM project – one of several activities of the ScienceLink network, which is a cooperative venture involving leading universities, research centres and regional development partners in the Baltic Sea region, whose aim is to turn scientific findings into innovations more swiftly. The key aim of BALTIC TRAM is to link Research Infrastructures at research centres and universities with industrial enterprises in the Baltic Sea Region.Overall, there was a great depth of input into the resolution of this year’s conference, which you can see in the draft conference resolution.Ladies and gentlemen,The BSPC was additional active on other fronts. There was a number of exchanges on the situation of refugees in our home countries (, which was also a central topic of other parliamentary conferences and assemblies I have participated in). We used the opportunity of the meetings of the Standing Committee in Riga and in Brussels to discuss the current status. It became very clear that every country is very occupied with the topic but that there are different approaches. However, it did prove useful to get an idea of how the situation is handled elsewhere and maybe to find inspiration for the dealing with the topic in our home parliaments and in international cooperation.The BSPC also launched a Working Group on Sustainable Tourism at its last conference in Rostock. The Working Group has had three meetings so far in Rostock, Helsinki and Petrozavodsk, the latter of which I myself and other members of the BSPC Standing Committee attended. The group has compiled a Midway Report, which was issued for this conference. The members of the Working Group have also provided this conference with comprehensive input for our resolution. Our colleague Sara Kemetter from Åland Islands, Vice-chairman of the Working Group, will give a more detailed interim report by the Working Group tomorrow. Unfortunately, Chairman of Working Group Sylvia Bretschneider is not able to attend this conference because of parliamentary elections at the end of this week. The Working Group has proven to work very efficiently and I’m very happy with the work carried out so far. Therefore, I am convinced that the Working Group will provide the next conference in Hamburg with a very comprehensive set of political recommendations, which will help forward Sustainable Tourism in the Baltic Sea Region.It is also the honourable duty of the BSPC President to meet with our partners and other parliamentary organizations. I had – inter alia - the pleasure of addressing during my Chairmanship the 7th Barents Parliamentary Conference in Helsinki, the 67th Session of the Nordic Council, as well as twice – the General Assembly meetings of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. I’m very honoured that the PABSEC President, Ms Maja Gojkovic, can attend our conference today. The BSPC was (– inter alia -) also represented at the Baltic Sea Days in Saint Petersburg as well as at the European Maritime Day Conference in Turku, where issues relating to the environment and maritime matters played an important role.Ladies and Gentlemen,it became very clear that one issue has increasingly been in the spotlight of the work of other parliamentary conferences and assemblies: to undertake joint efforts against terrorism. In my speech at the 47th PABSEC General Assembly in Moscow – (during which I also had the chance to speak to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) – I emphasized the need both to defend our security and to defend the fundamental values that make us strong, namely freedom, democracy and human rights. With regard to the cruel terror attacks of the last months I underlined the crucial need for joint fight against terrorism.Therefore it is (for me) of fundamental importance, that we- condemn terrorism in all its forms as a common threat for our citizens and our shared values,- deplore the loss of innocent lives, express sympathy and solidarity with the victims of allterrorist attacks, their families and all those who suffered in these inhumane attacks and,- express the crucial need for the joint fight against this major threat to any of our societiesin our this year’s resolution,Ladies and gentlemen,Finally I would like to inform the conference about a request from the Belarusian National Assembly to be granted the status of Observer at the BSPC. A corresponding letter was addressed to the former Chairmanship, and I assumed the dealing of this matter right after the Rostock conference.The BSPC Standing Committee had thorough exchanges of opinion on the matter. This also involved comprehensive experts briefings on Belarus and the Eastern Partnership after the Presidential election in Belarus in the context of our Standing Committee meeting in Brussels by the Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Belarus, and a representative from the European External Action Service.After careful consideration the Standing Committee decided to dispatch a visit to Minsk to investigate ways to start a process of contacts and discussions about common issues. The Vice- president Carola Veit and myself took part in this visit, as well as our colleagues Maria Tolppanen, Franz Thönnes, Giedre Purvaneckienė, Dorota Arciszewska-Mielewczyk, Valentina Pivnenko and Hans Wallmark.Discussions were held both with representatives from the governmental side as well as from the opposition. Overall, all meetings and talks showed that there is an expressed interest in the Belarusian House of Representatives acquiring the status of BSPC observer at some point. The opposition stressed that while not much change could be expected, an observer status could still be an important element as part of a learning process of parliamentarianism. The government, on the other hand, also expressed its interest in an observer status, but underlined that it could otherwise engage with the respective parliaments individually, for instance through uni- or multilateral cooperation agreements. Discussions focused also on the past presidential election, the upcoming parliamentary elections, as well as the state of the democratic process in Belarus in general. Additionally each delegation had bilateral contacts to their respective embassies in Belarus.One important outcome of the visit to Minsk is that representatives from Belarus have been invited to today’s conference and that the discussion regarding the observer status of the Belarusian parliament will continue, also bearing in mind the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Belarus. The BSPC is determined to make a final decision in 2017.Ladies and gentlemen,It has been very good being BSPC President throughout this past year (combined with helpful synergistic and cumulative effects by facing the challenge of being at the same time President of the Baltic Assembly) and I think we’ve brought forward good initiatives.I very much look forward to the conference here in Riga.People coming together is the basis for any cooperation.And cooperation also contributes to peace.In this spirit I wish all of us fruitful discussions, wise decisions, and a very successfulcontinuation of our 25 years cooperation.Thank you.