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Dear participants of the academy,
dear colleagues and friends,
ladies and gentlemen,

First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to this event. I am sure that this morning will be very useful for reflection on perspectives of the Baltic Sea Strategy, from both a political and an operational point of view.

It is important to recall that the strategic vision of the Baltic Sea area was one of the topical themes in the course of Lithuanian presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. Two month ago, in the Baltic Sea States Summit and the Baltic Development Forum in Vilnius, the leading figures of the region, including our President Dalia Grybauskaitė, reiterated their broad political support and emphasized that the future of the region depends on its further and deeper integration, and that we all have to bear great responsibility for implementation of the Baltic Sea Strategy.

In my speech today I would like to touch upon three main aspects:

First, highlight the main reasons for our interest in the macro-regional approach in general, and the Baltic Sea Strategy in particular,

Second, make reference to main priority areas and issues addressed in the Strategy which, in my view, could have the biggest value added from the regional approach,

Third, make mention of some aspects on how to put the Strategy into practice, in order to deliver results that we hope for.

I.

I am aware that some people in this audience feel there are too many strategies and other types of „paper tigers“ in the EU. We got Lisbon Strategy, nearly two month ago the European Council validated the EU2020 strategy and affirmed that all EU policies, including national and regional policies, will have to contribute towards this strategy.

One could ask: Why then we need macro-regional strategies, and the first of this kind – the Baltic Sea Strategy?

I think my considerations need to be guided by some general context.

It goes without saying that we are now in a delicate period from an economic, financial, ecological point of view. This situation is even more delicate given that most of the challenges are of a global nature, coming from outside of our countries or regions. This means that, in order to find effective solutions, better coordination between actors is more necessary than ever.

In my view, the strategic regional approach and the Baltic Sea Strategy (while remaining coherent with the goals of the EU2020 strategy) can help to provide more targeted and geographically differentiated responses to the challenges of the globalised world, and better adapt to the needs of our citizens.

II.

In this context then, what are the main challenges to be solved by means of a coherent macro-regional framework offered by the Baltic Sea Strategy?

The spectrum of problems in the Baltic Sea Region is wide, ranging from the environment and economy to competitiveness, lack of infrastructure, safety and security, as well as social and cultural issues. The Strategy’s action plan is designed to be a flexible and rolling document [veiksmų planas yra kintantis dokumentas, jis bus peržiūrimas ir atnaujinamas maždaug kas vienerius metus], and therefore remain open to changes in the regional, EU and on the global arena.

All in all, the Strategy picked the areas of action where EU policy and financing can contribute most to ongoing regional activities and bearing in mind that the success of our region depends on how we are getting most out of the strengths that we do have - educated work force, investments in research and development, well functioning infrastructure and public services.

To avoid recurrence [ri'kᴧrəns pasikartojimo] of what was already discussed yesterday, let me very briefly name and reflect on just a few factors which I consider to be especially important for enhanced regional integration and growth:

First, the integration of the Western and Eastern littorals ['litarəls  integracija tarp rytinės ir vakarinės pakrančių] of the Baltic Sea area. The State of Region Report of this year shows that our region continues to be amongst the most competitive and innovative areas in the world. However, there are still significant disparities in a competitive advantage in different parts of the region (Nordic countries and Germany belong to the top ten of the world’s most competitive countries, while the Baltic states and Poland are placing significantly lower positions). Yet, our region needs deeper integration in order to secure and strengthen its competitive position and realize its development potential.

One crucial area of cooperation and integration lies in improvements in infrastructure. Future perspectives of secure and sustainable energy supply, integration of energy markets and infrastructure, and potentials of renewable energy in the region are considered to be the absolute priority issues. We must also invest in transport infrastructure – roads, railroads, and aviation – to create markets and new opportunities to do business in the region (Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan, Rail Baltica, East-West transport corridor could be named as important positive steps in this direction).

Another important area is research, development, innovation, and knowledge-based society. The innovative potential of the region is very high, but far from being fully developed. Knowledge and competence are the central means to strengthen our competitiveness and sustainable growth. I would also like to emphasize that in this regard special attention should be given to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs make nearly 100 per cent of all companies and provide around 70 per cent of all jobs in the BSR). Well developed regional research infrastructure should be created, ideally in a coordinated way (for example, the creation of a network of accredited laboratories in the Baltic Sea countries could be an important area of cooperation).

Next, implementation of the Baltic Sea Strategy can also contribute to establishing more close relationships with our neighbouring non-EU countries.

We are all well aware, that the Baltic Sea Strategy is an internal EU instrument, and primarily aimed at the EU Member States in the region. It is however clear that the Strategy includes some action with regard to which cooperation with third countries is desirable or even essential if the objectives are to be achieved.

In this regard, keeping not only our democratic, likeminded regional partners, such as Norway and Iceland, but also Russia and Belarus, involved as responsible players, is of importance. This is especially practicable in relation to the Kaliningrad Region which, being surrounded by EU Member States, could employ the Strategy as a sort of “regional incubator” to stimulate its social and economic development.

With these points in mind, not a few have already been done in this direction by the EU Commission and the Member States. In the Northern Dimension Steering Group meetings, the implementation of the Strategy is a standing item on the agenda (for example, Russia has clearly indicated that it perceives positively EU intentions to keep it informed and involved, and confirmed its readiness to exchange views on specific aspects of cooperation, such as transport, energy, tourism, cross-border health threats, environmental protection and adaptation to climate change, customs and border controls, etc.). Russian, Belorussian representatives, have been and will be in the future present at the conferences and public stakeholder discussions on the Strategy [e.g. in Tallinn, on 14-15 of October] to further consider the details, their special role and value added to this cooperation.

The recent BDF Summit in Vilnius confirmed that stronger regional cooperation and integration, and the involvement of Russian Federation and Belarus into the Baltic Sea Strategy implementation process are two sides of the same coin.

Surely, there is still much to do in order to safeguard an effective cooperation with Russia and Belarus on external aspects of the Strategy. On a general level, this would be actively developed on the bilateral basis, but also in tandem with the more complex process of the European Neighbourhood Policy (e.g. by proposing that the future (post-2013) ENP should take greater account of the territorial dimension to ensure the overall coherence with the Baltic Sea Strategy, and increasing the share of territorial cooperation [from 5 to 10 or so per cent] in the total ENP budget).

III.

Dear friends,

The need to implement the Baltic Sea Strategy is something on which all European actors agreed. However, in order to be justified and effective, an action-oriented planning and implementation mechanisms are needed.

And this brings me to the last part of my intervention – How to put the aims of the Strategy into practice to deliver results that we hope for?

In this regard, I would offer four specific remarks:

First of all, it is important to stress, that implementation of the Strategy’s action plan calls for strong daily commitment at all levels of governance and from all partners involved. It is not surprising that the Strategy has been placed high on the Parliament’s and the Government‘s agenda, the National monitoring commission (comprised of all relevant ministries as well as social-economic partners) was established and started its work early this year. It is not only the responsibility of the Government, but also of the business community, private sector and non-governmental organizations. What we need is cooperation, a partnership between the public and private sector.

Secondly, there will be no result without concrete actions. It is absolutely essential that the Strategy related measures be prioritized, funded and put into effect. Of course, it would be taking some time before everyone was well integrated into their roles. If we look at the goals set by the Strategy – competitiveness, infrastructure, environment, safety and security – it is clear that notable results cannot be achieved overnight.

But even at this early stage, some progress could already be noted. As you were informed in yesterday’s session, coordinators of thematic priority areas, as well as leaders of priority projects of the Strategy took up their work. A number of project leaders and partners are working to launch their projects, the relevant partnerships are set up, the joint objectives are agreed, the necessary funding is made available or is under way. However, several challenges remain and these are for the most part related to my next remark, and namely:

As the Strategy is designed to be a very practical and result-oriented, very little can be achieved without adequate financing. Thus, the availability of the financing possibilities and the engagement of regional and international financing institutions (such as the Nordic Investment Bank, the European Investment Bank) are issues that also are very much considered.

Now, after we have come further into the Strategy, it is seen more clearly that the lack of synchronisation between the Strategy and regional policy programming do not make delivering it easy. Most of the structural funds had already been programmed when the Strategy was launched, and it is quite a complex process to change previously established arrangements. However, the Member States and the EU Commission are well aware of these difficulties and the need to propose solutions on how to better use the budget of current structural funds and transnational programs (by way of illustration, an evaluation made by the Ministry of Finance shows that in Lithuania’s case the structural funds Operational Programmes compatibility with the Baltic Sea Strategy is quite high, as 52 per cent of the EU structural assistance for Lithuania could be used for the projects that directly contributes to the aims of the Strategy. In two month, similar evaluation will be made for territorial cooperation, rural development programs, TEN-T and TEN-E financing. There are also plans to adopt special project selection criteria that would prioritize the Strategy related projects).

And for the more distant future, a special account for the Baltic Sea Strategy in the discussions on the next EU financial perspective [2014-2020 m.], in my view, would be also welcome.

Finally, there is a vital need to sustain the momentum and a high degree of visibility for the Strategy. A key component of this publicity dimension is the idea of an Annual Stakeholder Forum, starting in mid October of this year in Tallinn, to review and discuss the progress and to make recommendations on implementation.

In one year from now, we look forward to hearing from the Polish EU Presidency about how the Strategy has been followed up. And of course, the Strategy will take an important place on the agenda of the Lithuanian EU Presidency in 2013, both in examining progress thus far, and also by producing new ideas for the development of the Strategy.

And one very last point before handing over to Mr Jurkynas.

I know that some people, quite rightly, underline how complicated it is to implement such initiatives as the Baltic Sea Strategy. I cannot deny this. It is something of which we are quite well aware in our day-today work.

However, the Strategy is by nature a long-term approach. It would be implemented step-by-step in a process of “learning through doing” and correction. And therefore, we should not disregard it on the pretext that all the conditions are not yet in place to allow us to work and cooperate to an optimum conditions. Otherwise, we run a risk of missing out on the opportunity this “pilot” initiative offers to our region and EU as a whole.

I think we need to bear this in mind when seeking to address the question facing us in today‘s session: “Is the Baltic Sea Strategy an instrument for further integration of the region or merely a bunch of paper?”

I do stress the advantage of this innovative regional initiative which – even if it might not be so easy to implement at the desirable pace and quality – is worth trying.

Thank you all for your kind attention.