Center for Key Skills

Summaries of the Ex-ante Evaluation (1.) and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (2.)


1. Summary of the Ex-ante Evaluation

The regional analysis is well written and addresses the right issues

The regional analysis is well written and retains its quality level throughout. It raises all of the relevant questions and is based on the latest available statistics. The analysis succeeds in balancing the different aspects of sustainable development. The economic, environmental and social issues are presented and a good overview of their status in the Central Baltic Region is provided. A clear link is established between the analysis produced and the SWOT. The analysis addresses the right issues and connects well with the Lisbon agenda goals. 

Once the regional analysis is performed and the programme needs are identified a structure of objectives has to be created to function as a platform for programme implementation.

The vision of the programme is to create a globally recognised, dynamic, sustainable and competitive region that is attractive for business and visitors and where people want to live, work and invest. The programme strategy shows how the vision can be accomplished. The strategy rests on three different approaches:
• A geographical focus on the Central Baltic Area, which binds more than 20 regions together, including four capitals.
• A cross-border aspect, i.e. to seize opportunities and produce benefits in situations where a solely national approach may not be enough.
• A thematic focus on three major priorities:
o Safe and healthy environment
o Economically competitive and innovative region
o Attractive and dynamic societies

The programme will promote cross-border co-operation, while there is also potential for positive social, economic and environmental impacts, which in turn can promote the development of the programme area. What remains unclear however is the realism of the programme goals are and the probability of their realisation.

It is not possible to ex ante evaluate the degree to which the programme will achieve its objectives based on the available funds. In order to do so, the programme would have to describe its underlying theory more clearly, and to specify how outputs and results will produce impacts. 

The programme document does refer to some of the experiences gained from the two previous Interreg IIIA programmes in this region. Nevertheless, an indication of the experiences that are deemed relevant for both an assessment of the expected outcomes and impacts of implemented projects and the programme as a whole are not included, which is a weakness.

The output indicators set targets for the number of projects that are expected to support certain goals or activities. Such indicators are useful to monitor if the programme is doing the right things, in line with the programme spirit. They cannot however say much about the quality of the results achieved. The main challenge that remains is therefore to include indicators that provide an indication of whether a project is of sufficient quality and whether programme goals will be reached or not – i.e. when the programme is successful and when it is less successful. 

The large variety of potential actions demands a competent and highly efficient administration able to quickly assess incoming applications. A call for proposals that is open to all kinds of projects within every priority and every direction of support will provide a significant challenge to the programme organisation. One advantage with having many applications is however that projects can be assessed competitively.

To insure that the Central Baltic Programme only supports high quality projects it will probably be necessary to create such a competition between projects. One possibility here is to make limited calls, where certain directions of support or possible actions are highlighted to the public. The marketing of the programme can then be directed towards specific target groups depending on the topic announced. Such a procedure will encourage competition and comparisons between project applications and create a critical mass of projects to insure learning in the decision making process. This will, moreover, allow implementation to be better focussed than in the actual programme document. 


2. Summary of the Strategic Environmental Assessment

The Central Baltic Cross-border Programme will not have significant negative impacts on the environment

Multi-annual development programmes provide core elements for the common regional policy of the European Union. The Central Baltic cross-border programme 2007-2013 is now in preparation in the context of the European Territorial Co-operation Objective.

The participating territories in the Central Baltic Programme are situated in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Sweden and Åland. The vision of the programme is to create a globally recognised, dynamic, sustainable and competitive region that is attractive for business and visitors and where people want to live, work and invest.

The programme has three priorities, namely, to create a: Safe and healthy environment; Economically competitive and innovative regions; and Attractive and dynamic societies, and will be implemented through three geographical sub-programmes:
• Central Baltic Thematic sub-programme. 
• Southern Finland-Estonia sub-programme. 
• Archipelago and Islands sub-programme. 

The programme is a strategic document and does not describe the projects that will be carried out. The programme content is only specified in a number of “directions of support” for each of the geographical sub-programmes under each priority.

Environmental impacts can therefore only be assessed at a general level and based on the intentions of the programme. Based on a description of the state of the environment in the programme region and an analysis of the possible implications of the programme on the environment, the conclusion is that the implementation of the Central Baltic programme not is likely to have any significantly negative impacts on the environment.

Integration of environmental considerations in the programme

Environmental aspects are integrated throughout the programme. A description of the state of the environment in the programme region is included in the regional analysis, there are references to the general European goals for sustainable development, and the first of three programme priorities relates to the promotion of a safe and healthy environment.

The most important measure for securing a good environmental profile for the programme is to include criteria for project selection that take environmental impacts into consideration. Environmental authorities will be invited as members of the Steering Committee for each of the sub-programmes. The programme document does not however include selection criteria which is a weakness. This shall be corrected at a later stage of programming when selection criteria are described and monitoring routines established.

Monitoring and the mitigation of possible negative environmental consequences

Several indicators of a ‘positive environmental impact’ in respect of projects are included under Priority A (Safe and healthy environment). These indicators are however formulated only as “number of projects”, “number of studies”, “number of co-operations” etc., and, as such, do not measure the projects’ expected impact on the quality of the environment.

With a very open programme such as this, the development of concrete project selection criteria and monitoring routines is very important, as this is the only way to compensate for the general level of description in the programme and to bring environmental considerations into the projects. Like the criteria for project selection, monitoring routines and procedural operations for the mitigation of possible negative environmental impacts shall be decided at a later stage.

Participation in, and the results of, the public hearing

The draft programme (version 3, dated 15.12 2006) and the draft SEA report (dated 23.12 2006) were made publicly available during the period 05.01 2007 to 26.01 2007 (from 12.01 2007 to 02.02 2007 in Latvia). The hearing was organised nationally and was conducted in all countries:

• In Åland, the hearing was organised by the Government of Åland and announced in the two regional newspapers. Altogether seven organisations responded: four municipalities and three NGOs.
• In mainland Finland, the Ministry of the Interior and the four involved Regional Councils organised the hearing and announced it on their websites. Two of the regional councils also made announcements in regional newspapers. They also sent out targeted request for comments by e-mail to other regional authorities, municipalities and social partners. Two hearing events were organised, one in Turku and one in Helsinki. Through these various means, some 34 written comments were received, of which four referred to the SEA.
• In Sweden, the hearing was organised by the Stockholm County Administrative Board. Announcements were made in the main newspapers and invitations to participate were e-mailed to all municipalities and relevant NGOs in the region. Three hearing events were organised. In total, 21 responses were received. None of these made any comments in respect of the SEA.
• In Estonia, the information about the opening of public hearing was sent by e-mail to regions, line ministries, international organisations, municipalities, NGOs, etc., while a hearing event for line ministries was arranged in Tallinn with 51 participants. There are no specific references to the SEA in the summary of received comments.
• We have not received any protocol from the public hearing held in Latvia.

The comments received did not result in any further programme changes in respect, specifically, of environmental issues.

In 2014 the German NGO (association) "New Work-New Culture" (Neue Arbeit-Neue Kultur), located in the port city of Kiel (Baltic Sea), started to set-up a Baltic Sea Region network around the topic of “New Work-New Culture”, to discuss and exchange the ideas and principles derived from the work of Prof. Frithjof Bergmann, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the context of current social, economic and political developments. The ongoing activities are financially supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The New Work-New Culture association from Kiel (Neue Arbeit-Neue Kultur Kiel e.V.) and the network partner from the Baltic Sea Region are the beneficiaries of that funding.
The overall objective of the activities then was - and still is - to come up with a common basic concept among the network partners, of how the principals and ideas of New Work-New Culture can contribute to the search for innovative problem solutions in response to the ongoing fundamental changes in the technological and socio-economic conditions of daily work. Particularly since these developments are accompanied by a growing gap and divide between rich (highly paid earner) and poor (poorly paid earner), well and poorly educated/qualified, and employed and unemployed citizens.
The concept of New Work-New Culture puts a critical perspective on the current role and appreciation of the individual, primarily the employee and manual worker, by the employer and business/industry lobby as well as in social, economic, and educational policy. As a result, fundamental cultural changes seem necessary to achieve a better appreciation of the individual, as employee and labourer as well as freelancer and independent worker, in its contribution to economic value creation and social stability. Fundamental intellectual ingredients of such a cultural shift at the workplace are seen in creativity, individuality and sustainability. So far globalization and digitalization seem to accelerate these processes of social divide and underline the need for places, infrastructure and networks to redirect this shift towards a societal transformation, that makes positive use of the technological and social (social media) potential of the globalization and digitalization phenomena for the individual and the community. The intended "Impact Hubs: New Work-New Culture" (Centers for New Work-New Culture) in the Baltic Sea Region will offer such places - infrastructure, networks and competences - in making use of/utilizing creativity, individuality, and sustainability as key catalysts/promoters for the social empowerment of individuals and the wellbeing of communities.
Since August 2014 the Baltic Sea Network is working on the develop of a common understanding and shared perspective of these issues. Therefore, key issues of New Work-New Culture were/are discussed in the context of local/regional particularities/specifics. Progress was/is made in coming up with a joint problem perspective and a coherent framework for measures and initiatives of problem solutions to lay the grounding for a new culture of work, individual empowerment and community wellbeing.

In 2014 the German NGO (association) "New Work-New Culture" (Neue Arbeit-Neue Kultur), located in the port city of Kiel (Baltic Sea), started to set-up a Baltic Sea Region network around the topic of “New Work-New Culture”, to discuss and exchange the ideas and principles derived from the work of Prof. Frithjof Bergmann, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the context of current social, economic and political developments. The ongoing activities are financially supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The New Work-New Culture association from Kiel (Neue Arbeit-Neue Kultur Kiel e.V.) and the network partner from the Baltic Sea Region are the beneficiaries of that funding.
The overall objective of the activities then was - and still is - to come up with a common basic concept among the network partners, of how the principals and ideas of New Work-New Culture can contribute to the search for innovative problem solutions in response to the ongoing fundamental changes in the technological and socio-economic conditions of daily work. Particularly since these developments are accompanied by a growing gap and divide between rich (highly paid earner) and poor (poorly paid earner), well and poorly educated/qualified, and employed and unemployed citizens.
The concept of New Work-New Culture puts a critical perspective on the current role and appreciation of the individual, primarily the employee and manual worker, by the employer and business/industry lobby as well as in social, economic, and educational policy. As a result, fundamental cultural changes seem necessary to achieve a better appreciation of the individual, as employee and labourer as well as freelancer and independent worker, in its contribution to economic value creation and social stability. Fundamental intellectual ingredients of such a cultural shift at the workplace are seen in creativity, individuality and sustainability. So far globalization and digitalization seem to accelerate these processes of social divide and underline the need for places, infrastructure and networks to redirect this shift towards a societal transformation, that makes positive use of the technological and social (social media) potential of the globalization and digitalization phenomena for the individual and the community. The intended "Impact Hubs: New Work-New Culture" (Centers for New Work-New Culture) in the Baltic Sea Region will offer such places - infrastructure, networks and competences - in making use of/utilizing creativity, individuality, and sustainability as key catalysts/promoters for the social empowerment of individuals and the wellbeing of communities.
Since August 2014 the Baltic Sea Network is working on the develop of a common understanding and shared perspective of these issues. Therefore, key issues of New Work-New Culture were/are discussed in the context of local/regional particularities/specifics. Progress was/is made in coming up with a joint problem perspective and a coherent framework for measures and initiatives of problem solutions to lay the grounding for a new culture of work, individual empowerment and community wellbeing.

Nachhaltigkeit kann nicht losgelöst von den gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen betrachtet werden, unter denen sich eine nachhaltige Entwicklung vollziehen kann. Diese Bedingungen sind wesentlich durch die Strukturen einer globalen kapitalistischen Marktwirtschaft charakterisiert, die nicht nur die ökonomischen Voraussetzungen von Nachhaltigkeit bestimmen und vielfältige soziale und politische Rückwirkungen haben, sondern auch die kulturellen Lebensformen, die Alltagspraktiken und individuellen Lebensverhältnisse prägen.

Sustainability cannot be viewed separately from the social conditions under which sustainable development can take place. These conditions are essentially characterized by the structures of a global capitalist market economy, which not only determine the economic prerequisites for sustainability and have diverse social and political repercussions, but also the cultural forms of life that shape everyday practices and individual living conditions.

The outstanding feature of traditional environmental policies is their consistently reactive posture - more or less ineffective - in the face of gross manifestations of ecological destruction and environmental health
hazards. In cases where pollutants exert an indirect toxicological impact
on human beings and their surrounding environment, there is, as a rule,
no reaction at all until significant damage is recorded and the cause-andeffect relationship between pollutant and problem are scientifically proven - often a difficult or even impossible feat to accomplish. Where direct intervention into the biological and socioeconomic components of living ecosystems has occurred in the form of construction or development projects, action based on such environmental policy has even less chance of successful damage control, or even damage avoidance.