Highlights

The year 2019 is a big year for the EU in many ways: the EU elections will take place in May, and the Union needs to also negotiate for post 2020 and the update of the multiannual financial framework. As EUSBSR is an EU Strategy, all these are relevant for those working with macro-regions, and not least because of the updating process of EUSBSR Action Plan taking place during 2019.

Norway is closely linked to Baltic Sea Region (BSR) and has taken active part in Baltic Sea Region cooperation on national, regional and local level for many years. Norway is also closely linked to EU through the EEA agreement and supports the economic, social and sustainable development of the BSR among others through the EEA and Norwegian financial instruments.

In September, four new flagships were approved in the National Coordinators' meeting. The actions of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region are implemented by means of Flagships. Flagships demonstrate the progress of the Strategy, and may serve as pilot examples for desired action in a given field. We interviewed the projects and asked what the status means to them.

The sun lovers of the Baltic Sea countries were bathed in the much awaited heat wave in summer 2018. But too often the perfect summer day at the beach or sailing boat was spoilt by toxic blue green algae in the sea. In many coastal countries, emotions ran high on traditional and social media to find the culprits to the algae overload. Manure was one of the accused.

Made of Courage is a short video series produced by the PA Bioeconomy. The series consists of five videos telling stories of people driving the development of the bioeconomy in the Baltic Sea Region. It celebrates entrepreneurial spirit, disruptive innovation and those who challenge the use of fossil and artificial resources by creating viable options that already work.

So far, four EU macro-regional strategies have been adopted. They cover different parts of Europe, but they are all based on the same principles and ideas, and often deal with similar problems and challenges. Thus, exchange across the regions is important and fruitful, as the two workshops “Message in a bottle: communication across macro-regional strategies” and a joint kick-off meeting to promote the role of social policies in the macro-regional context prove. The workshops were organised in September by Interact Programme.