Baltic Sea Cultural Cities project
⚲ Malmö, Sweden
⚲ Kaunas, Lithuania
“Water connects us, but culture unites us” is the motto of the Baltic Sea Cultural Cities project which is trying to increase citizens’ ownership of Baltic Sea culture and identity. The key idea of the project is to biannually nominate a “Baltic Sea City of Culture” that relies not on competition, but rather on cooperation between cities, encouraging them to find similarities and synergies between each other. An important part of the project is also to enable not just the capitals, but also citizens in smaller cities or regions in the periphery to participate in and showcase their unique cultural landscapes. The project was kicked off in Malmö, Sweden in October 2019, and met in Kaunas, Lithuania in December for a workshop.
Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue 2019
⚲ Berlin, Germany
As part of the Körber Foundation’s EUSTORY Next Generation Summit “Winds of Change – Transitions in Europe”, the 2019 Baltic Sea Youth dialogue took the form of a three day long creative workshop, in which the international BSYD participants explored the cultural, political and economic development of the Baltic Sea Region since 1989. 20 young adults from the CBSS Member States, as well as the Observer States of Belarus and Ukraine, participated in this year’s dialogue.
The youth summit was full of reflections about the decisive events that shaped Europe during the past 30 years. It opened with “The Value of Europe – 30 years after the Iron Curtain” with renowned international speakers, including former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
A special event was also devoted to how youth can contribute to policy-making. The panel discussion “Give us a seat at the table!”, co-organised by the CBSS and Forum Northern European Politics, explored this topic. It featured young activists from trade unions, promoters of LGBT rights and Baltic Sea cooperation organisations in dialogue with policymakers such as Johannes Schraps, Head of Delegation of the German Bundestag at the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and Simon Stermann, member of the CBSS Committee of Senior Officials from the German Federal Foreign Office, as well as National Coordinator for the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region in Germany. Together, they discussed the role of youth movements and youth activism in the Baltic Sea Region and generated possible solutions on how to better integrate young people’s voices into today’s policy-making.
Baltic Sea Youth Camp 2020
The 2020 Baltic Sea Youth Camp was planned to take place back-to-back with the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Forum in Turku, Finland, but due to the global pandemic, the event was moved online. The 2-day-webinar was opened by the President-in-Office of the CBSS, Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jeppe Kofod, who spoke to 80 young adults about his own experience of growing up on the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea. During the camp, the participants discussed young leadership, the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region as well as the opportunities and added value of Baltic Sea Region cooperation.
Baltic Sea Youth Platform launched
⚲ Stockholm, Sweden
The Baltic Sea Youth Platform was an idea that was developed at the 2018 Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue, and was further elaborated by young people during a workshop in the CBSS Secretariat in December 2019. The Platform was granted funding from Erasmus+ in January 2020. It has three focus areas: to improve the political impact of youth on decision-making in the Baltic Sea Region, to develop tools for better knowledge transfer and to serve as a facilitator for various innovative projects relying on the interests and capacities of youth in a broad range of policy areas. Since the launch, the platform has engaged many different youth organisations in the Region.