Holter speech at 29 BSPC

29 BSPCYEARSBaltic Sea Parliamentary ConferenceFIRST SESSIONVision 2030: Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region,Safe and Prosperous Development – Common Effectiveand Sustainable Solutions for the FutureMr. Dag Wernø HolterSenior Adviser, Nordic-Baltic Section,Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of NorwayMr President, Honourable Members of Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen,First of all, thank you very much for this opportunity to say a few words about cooperation inour region seen from a Norwegian perspective. We look forward to taking on our responsibilitiesas presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States as of next summer. But – as I hope you willappreciate – it would be premature for me to enter into any concrete aspects of our priorities forthat presidency, since we are so far only in the very early stages of preparations. I will thereforelimit myself to a few more general considerations regarding regional cooperation in our area.Regional cooperation in the Baltic Sea area has been and remains very important. One of thecharacteristics of this cooperation is the broad and varied network of different cooperationstructures. Norway participates in most of these cooperation structures, from the CBSS and theNorthern Dimension, to the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the Arctic Council and the Nordicand Nordic-Baltic cooperation. Very important is of course also our membership in the EuropeanEconomic Area, which in our region includes eight EU member states and two EFTA states andrepresents a very important framework for our economic relations.In 2010, our Heads of State and Government adopted in their Vilnius Declaration a vision for thedevelopment of our region by 2020. As has been shown in an interesting report commissioned thissummer by the Lithuanian presidency of the CBSS, looking at the present situation up against thisvision, much has in fact been achieved. But the report also underlines that there is clearly room forstrengthening our cooperation in many areas. We should therefore use the different cooperationformats and structures to their full potential.The reform process within the CBSS, following the Vision Group report and the StockholmDeclaration from 2018, was successfully concluded at the Ministerial meeting in May this year.In this process, it has been underlined that we need to strengthen efficiency, and not least that weneed to improve synergies between the different cooperation structures. In respect of synergies,the CBSS secretariat has now received a very clear mandate, and that is an interesting and usefulelement. The governments obviously also carry a strong responsibility to follow up. We furthermorebelieve that the parliamentary dimension of our regional cooperation, represented in particular byyou here in the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, plays a very valuable role. Your discussions,your assessments and your inputs to the work of the governments contribute to defining objectivesand challenges as well as possible ways forward.Finally, let me conclude by underlining that Norway considers the interplay between politicaldialogue and practical cooperation to be an essential dimension of our regional cooperation. Thisis an important experience from many years of our active participation in different cooperationformats in our region, and this will also be important for Norway when we are to serve as presidencyof the CBSS from next year. With the CBSS we have a very useful platform for political dialogueabout the challenges we face and the objectives that we want to achieve together. The CBSS itselfas well as the other regional formats offer structures for practical cooperation. It is for all of ustogether to make the best use of the tools that we here have at our disposal.Thank you very much for your attention.