Strategy and action plan for the Barents region until 2010

Summary

The Interreg III B Baltic Sea financed project Barents 2010 has been a joint challenge for all member regions of the Barents Region. The project was initiated by the Barents Regional Council and has been led by a Steering Committee, which in practice is the Barents Regional Committee. The main goal was to develop a multilateral Barents strategy and action plan for the period 2005-2010 related to mandates for the institutionalised Barents regional co-operation. A further basic profile of the project is an economic growth orientation, which may be of significant relevance to the northern dimension of the European Union. It is of special concern that the rich natural resources in the region are used with sustainability at the regional level in mind. 

There are two major prerequisites to consider for the strategy and action plan. Firstly, that the Barents regional co-operation is based on voluntary efforts from actors in the involved member regions. Secondly, that the member regions are subordinated national policies, laws and regulations, which give them limited possibilities to control their social and economic development themselves. As a consequence of these two circumstances, increased strength in relation to national and supranational levels seems only to be possible through a co-ordinated strategy and action plan across the member regions.

To meet this objective the strategy and action plan is characterised by a set of sector programmes. As a result of a multilayered and multilateral dialogue process, five sector programmes have been launched. They are focused on the use of natural resources and related transport issues. Four of these target the following industrial sectors: forestry, mining and minerals, oil and gas, and tourism.  The fifth sector programme is on east-west transport links.

In all sector programmes, a multilateral approach may build on valuable experiences of earlier bilateral and multilateral collaborations in the region. The concrete concerted actions build on efforts to combine the following four types of profile elements in order to reach sustainable results (see figure 1):

1. industrial development and cross-border transport links,
2. R&D,
3. environmental protection and improvement,
4. advanced educational programmes and training.

Figure 1: Principal framework of the sector programmes

Several of these arrangements could gain significantly from collaboration with a Triple Helix character. This means collaborative settings with actors from research and educational institutions, public authorities and the private sector (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Collaborative character of the sector programmes

Furthermore,  the importance of involving young people in the development process is stressed. This  must include both measures so people stay in the region and measures to attract competent and entrepreneurial people.

Download the Barents 2010 strategy document:
 Barents 2010 Strategy [100 kB]