CES and Toivo debate the future role of the EU’s macro-regions.

The Centre for European Studies and the Finnish think tank Toivo organised a seminar and roundtable debate entitled ‘Regional Trends in European Politics – from the Baltic to the Arctic Sea’ on 12 June in Jyvaskyla, Finland focusing on regions in the European Union and especially on the concept of macro-regions.

The event was opened by CES Director Tomi Huhtanen who outlined the research the Centre for European Studies had done on the subject and presented the findings of the newest CES research paper ‘The Baltic Sea Strategy: a Pilot Project for Macro-Regionalisation of the EU’ by Dr Esko Antola. This research paper assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Baltic Sea Strategy, pinpointing areas for improvement.

Markku Markkula, Member of the Committee of the Regions and former Member of the Finnish Parliament gave his view on regional trends in European politics and made a synthesis on the EU 2020 Strategy and its regional impact, focusing especially promoting innovation.

After that, Mr Frank Bakke Jensen, Member of the Norwegian Parliament, gave an outline of the rising importance and policy focus on the Arctic Area, which derives largely from the recent discovery of large gas and oil deposits in the region and the possibility that transportation through the Arctic region will become increasing important in the future. The participants of the seminar included experts of Toivo and guest from EPP parties or related institutes across Europe.