Focused transnational cooperation brings added value to the Baltic Sea Region
The Action Plan for the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea (EUSBSR) is being updated in 2025 and 2026, with approval expected by spring 2026. The EUSBSR Action Plan is the guiding document for transnational cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.
Around 2006, a joint idea rose that well-coordinated transnational cooperation would bring added value to all countries bordering the Baltic Sea. Following a request by the European Council, the European Commission developed the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), which was adopted in 2009.
The macro-regional approach provides an integrated framework for addressing challenges that are too broad for the national level but too specific for the EU. The Strategy addresses the key challenges of sustainable environment, prosperity, accessibility, and safety and security, but also the opportunities to make the Baltic Sea Region an integrated, forward-looking world-class region. The cooperation format aims at making the most of the resources at hand: coordinating actions by member states, regions and municipalities, the EU, pan-Baltic organisations, financing institutions and non-governmental bodies for a more effective development of the region.
The geopolitically challenging reality in the Baltic Sea Region, combined with the raising concerns for climate, and the request for flexible and efficient use of the EU budget highlights the need for transnational cooperation. To give the Strategy more focus and to remain a relevant framework, it is necessary to evaluate the key objectives and set out how they are to be achieved. The periodically updated EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Action Plan corresponds to this need. In the Action Plan, the member states of the Strategy identify the most important actions for implementation and indicators that enable monitoring and evaluation.
Baltic Sea Region cooperation reinforces and facilitates the implementation of EU policies on the territorial level. The coordinating work shows that macro-regional approach adds a valuable cooperative and practical element to progress:
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We support the work for safeguarding the Baltic Sea from invasive species