Ministerial meeting for the EU’s Northern Dimension in Luxembourg

The second Northern Dimension(Link to another website.) ministerial meeting will be held in Luxembourg on Monday, 9 April, 2001, in connection with the EU’s General Affairs Council. Participants include Finland, the current chair of the Arctic Council(Link to another website.), and other EU members as well as the seven partner countries, i.e. Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Russia. The Luxemburg meeting is a follow-up for the ministerial meeting in November 1999 during the Finnish presidency.

The meeting in Luxembourg is the first joint opportunity for the EU members and their partners together with the Commission and observers to evaluate how the action plan adopted at the European Council in Feira has been launched.

Including the partners closely in the process provides the Northern Dimension programme more weight. Strengthening the cooperation is thus high on the Luxembourg agenda. Presidency conclusions will also prepare ground for the European Council in Gothenburg in June.

At the meeting, the Commission will present an updated report on the projects that have been launched with EU funding. The Commission will also present new guidelines for better coordination of the EU’s financial instruments, such as Interreg and Tacis.

Observers in the ministerial meeting include the presiding countries of the Council of the Baltic States (CBSS), the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) and the Arctic Council as well as the Trans-Atlantic partners, the United States and Canada, and international financial institutions.

More information: Ari Heikkinen, Head of the Unit for the Northern Dimension at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, tel: 09 – 1341 6186, and Bo Lindroos, Counsellor at the Unit for the Northern Dimension at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, tel: 09 – 1341 5627.