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Minister of State Pieper looks back at Germany’s CBSS Presidency
On 18 June, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office Cornelia Pieper will be participating in the third Annual Forum on the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, which is being held in Copenhagen at the same time as the 14th Baltic Development Forum Summit.
As part of the conference, Minister of State Pieper will sit on the ministerial panel and outline the outcomes of Germany’s CBSS Presidency.
Minister of State Pieper issued the following statement before her departure today (15 June):
Twenty years after the Council of the Baltic Sea States was founded, Germany has used its Presidency to set a fresh agenda. We can see that in the strategic area of energy security, established as a responsibility shared by all the states on the Baltic coast.
We can also see it in our initiative for modernization aimed particularly at the South Eastern Baltic Area (SEBA) around the Kaliningrad region. The Modernization Partnership is supported financially by a project fund supplied by the member states as well as a credit line of 100 million euros from KfW and its Russian banking partner. The fund targets innovative projects run by SMEs and public-private partnerships. Our Baltic Sea Days and Baltic Sea Youth Session served to boost the civil society element of this cooperation. Youth exchange above all is what can make the Baltic Sea into a sea that brings people together.
Background information:
The Federal Republic of Germany took over the rotating CBSS Presidency on 1 July 2011. At the invitation of Foreign Minister Westerwelle, the CBSS foreign ministers convened for an extraordinary session at Schloss Plön (Schleswig-Holstein) to mark the Council’s 20th anniversary on 5 February 2012. The Foreign Office itself hosted the Baltic Sea Days from 23 to 27 April, with a keynote speech from Federal President Joachim Gauck, and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel presided over the CBSS Summit in Stralsund on 30-31 May. The Council of the Baltic Sea States has a membership encompassing the states actually on the Baltic Sea – Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Germany – as well as Norway, Iceland and the European Commission.
