Northern dimension gets more attention
Progress on IT (information technology) exploitation and environmental cooperation in the Northern region were the main issues discussed at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers and high level representatives from seven partner countries on 9 April. A new initiative 'Northern eDimension' was launched by the Council of the Baltic sea and the European Commission at the meeting, which will aim to exploit the IT potential of the region. The region includes countries such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark, which have consistently scored highly in terms of IT innovation in European and global surveys. A plan for increased environmental cooperation was also discussed at the meeting, which aims to encourage large-scale environmental projects in the region. These would include waste water management systems in St Petersburg and nuclear waste treatment on the Kola peninsula. Estimates put the total cost of environmental projects in the region at around 7 billion euro and improved cooperation could lead to pooling or resources and avoiding duplication of effort. 'This is the kind of environment cooperation that gives us the added value and synergy we strive for in the Northern dimension,' said Anna Lindh, Swedish foreign minister. A Northern region action plan was originally agreed at the Feira summit in Portugal in June 2000 with priority areas such as the environment, nuclear safety and the situation in Kaliningrad. Its overall aim is to draw attention to the to the special needs and the development potential of northern Europe. The Swedish presidency has stated that it would like to see the Northern dimension integrated into European Union policies. The Northern region is defined as the Baltic area, North West Russia and the Barents region. As well as the foreign ministers of the 15 EU Member States, representatives from Norway, Poland, Russia, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all took part, in addition to the European Commissioner for External relations, Chris Patten and the European Union's High representative, Javier Solana. Representatives from European financial institutions such as the European Investment bank attended, as did observers from other European institutions such as the European Parliament and the Economic and social committee, as well as participants from the USA and Canada. A complete report on the progress of the Northern dimension will be drawn up by the Swedish presidency and the European Commission and presented at the forthcoming Gothenburg summit.
Kraje
Denmark