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On 4 March, a meeting of the Steering Committee of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics will be held in Vilnius. The meeting will mark the beginning of Lithuania’s chairmanship of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics.

Representatives from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport and the Directorate-General for External Relations, from the ministries of foreign affairs and transport of Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, from the European Investment Bank and Nordic Investment Bank will attend the meeting. It will be chaired by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

On 21 October 2009 in Naples (Italy), transport ministers of countries of the Northern Dimension initiative signed a Memorandum of Understanding setting out the modalities of establishing the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics, which is the basis for the activities of the Partnership on Transport and Logistics.

The Steering Committee of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics that starts its work in Vilnius will have to address the issues of completing to shape this partnership and to seek that the Partnership on Transport and Logistics would actually begin to function from 2011. The Steering Committee will have to decide on the establishment of the Secretariat of the Partnership on Transport and Logistics and on the implementation of projects of transport infrastructure and non-infrastructure measures.

During the chairmanship of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics in 2010, Lithuania will have a possibility to contribute to the improvement of the North European transport infrastructure and its logistics conditions. This will be a good opportunity to present the possibilities and advantages of the Lithuanian transport system, to draw attention to the balancing of the Northern Dimension policy and upgrading of its southern dimension. These steps will facilitate business, trade flows and the movement of people in Northern Europe. In 2011, Norway will take over the chairmanship.

The Northern Dimension is the initiative, which was launched by the government of Finland and the European Commission in 1997. It aims to highlight the European Union’s strategic interests in Northern Europe and to strengthen the cooperation among the Baltic Sea region countries and Russia. The Northern Dimension joins together the EU member states, Russia, Norway and Iceland.

The initiative allows for an intensified cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, including Russia’s North-West and the Kaliningrad Region. The Northern Dimension is made up of a wide range of partnerships. The Partnership on Transport and Logistics focuses on the implementation of infrastructure projects in the countries of the Northern Dimension initiative.