The next year is coming with many changes within the work of the EUSBSR. The revised EUSBSR Action Plan will come into force early 2021 and will bring new tasks to the EUSBSR stakeholders and the Let’s Communicate! project.

Let’s Communicate! a project funded by the INTERREG Baltic Sea Region Programme  functions as the EUSBSR Communication Point. With the revised Action Plan coming into force, Let’s Communicate! project activities will be enlarged and prolonged by the end of 2021. Current project activities will be complemented with the most essential tasks from three former Horizontal Actions (HA) – Capacity, Neighbours and Climate.

Due to their cross-cutting nature and increased importance, the former Horizontal Actions climate change and cooperation with neighbouring non-EU countries are mainstreamed as essential elements into all 14 PAs. Integrating them into the PAs ensures that they are properly taken into account. It also allows the PAs to tailor-make the implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as cooperation with neighbouring non-EU countries in ways that are the most efficient for each PA. 

 

Given the importance of communication and capacity building, the functions of the Interreg-funded project “Let’s Communicate!” and the former Horizontal Action capacity are consolidated.

The EUSBSR Action Plan

Enlarged Let’s Communicate! is an interim solution for the next year when the Action Plan is in force but the new Baltic Sea Strategy Point (BSP) is not yet up and running. The Action Plan states that the BSP is a function providing administrative and technical support for EUSBSR management and development, and it will coordinate capacity building, knowledge-sharing and communication activities. Presumably, the BSP will be operational in 2022. However, Let’s Communicate! will not carry out all the tasks assigned for the BSP, instead it will focus on the most essential activities to not to lose any expertise during this interim period and build the institutional memory of the EUSBSR.

 

What to expect from the Let’s Communicate project in 2021?

The project will continue to function as a communication point for the EUSBSR with the following tasks:

• Maintain the daily communication flows and channels,
• Offer support to the Annual Forum organisers in communication,
• Continue to update and develop communication tool kit for the communication needs of Policy Areas (PA) and National Coordinators' Group,
• Develop internal newsletter,
• Produce content for webpage, social media channels, external newsletters,
• Publish blog series with the results and success stories of PAs and Flagships.

These tasks are targeted both at internal and external audiences. They will focus on helping to understand the new Action Plan as well as promote the climate actions and non-EU cooperation within the PAs work.

 

What will be the new activities for the enlarged project?

The Action Plan defines that horizontal aspects as addressing climate change and cooperation with non-EU neighbouring countries and organizations are appropriately integrated into the work of each PA. The new tasks of Let’s Communicate!  will support and facilitate PAs in mainstreaming both horizontal aspects in their work. All tasks will be implemented in a close cooperation with policy area coordinators and will be based on each PA’s needs.

Mainstreaming non- EU cooperation

Strategic importance of cooperation between the EU countries and non-EU countries varies significantly in different PAs. The project will continue processes started in HA Neighbours and will offer tools and facilitation to PAs in this mainstreaming activity. With each PA, baseline, objectives, added value, activities and tasks to effectively mainstream non-EU cooperation will be developed individually. For this task each PA decides how and to what extend they want to mainstream this cooperation. The project will follow-up on PAs progress, offer tailor-made facilitation and document the process along the way.

Mainstreaming climate actions

Mainstreaming climate actions is demanding, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Likewise to non-EU cooperation, guiding principle is that each PA decides how to address this requirement of mainstreaming. Project will facilitate PAs in formulating the objectives and understanding the needs. Afterwards an external expert will step in this work and in a collaborative manner form a solid foundation for future mainstreaming activities.

 

The new Action Plan is the basis for the EUSBSR cooperation. We are happy offer support and facilitation to each of the PAs in adapting to the new requirements. Let us know how we can be of help, we are here for you!

Kirsi Ahlman, Let's Communicate!