Conclusion: The Baltic Sea as a Model Region

Economic, environmental and political issues have put the Baltic Sea area in the late 2000s again on the European agenda. A redefinition of Baltic Sea policy came from the Swedish government, especially the Swedish European minister Cecilia Malmstrom who prioritised regional policy in the Baltic.

1. An environmentally sustainable region.

2. A prosperous region.

3. An accessible and attractive region.

4. A safe and secure region.^[653]

This strategy was agreed during the Swedish presidency of the European Council in October 2009. The implementation of the strategy will take place in a number of flagship projects which have either strategic rel­evance for the whole region or specific importance for individual regions. One project - the replacement of phosphates in detergents - aims to limit the nitrate influx into the Baltic Sea, while the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) seeks to balance bilateral energy agreements.

Since 2011, the European Council has been receiving annual reports on the implementation of the strategy. These show that the strategy has launched an impressive number of flagship projects, although they will take time to bear fruit.

Further Reading

In the 1990s political changes in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe triggered interest in the Baltic Sea region. That is why David Kirby and Matti Klinge wrote general surveys then: Kirby, Northern Europe in the early modern period: The Baltic world, 1492-1772 (London, 1990); Kirby, The Baltic world, 1772-1993: Europe's northern periphery in an age of change (London, 1995); Klinge, The Baltic world, trans. Timothy Binham (Helsinki, 2010). While Kirby focuses on the peripheral charac­ter of the Baltic Sea, Klinge concentrates on the role of empires in the region. In this respect he is followed by Alan Warwick Palmer, Northern shores: A history of the Baltic sea and its peoples (London, 2005). A more maritime history that treats the Baltic Sea and the North Sea together has been written by David Kirby and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen, The Baltic and the North Seas (London, 2000). The latest synthesis with a special interest in trade and cultures is Michael North, The Baltic: A history, trans. Kenneth Kronenberg (Cambridge, MA, 2015). For a conceptu­alisation of the Baltic Sea region, see Marko Lehti, ‘Possessing a Baltic Europe: Retold national narratives in the European North’, in M. Lehti and D. J. Smith, eds., Post-Cold War identity politics: Northern and Baltic experiences (London, 2003), pp. 11-49; Michael North, ‘Reinventing the Baltic Sea region: From the Hansa to the EU-Strategy of 2009’, The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, 4 (2012): 5-17. For his­tories of the Baltic States, see Andres Kasekamp, A history of the Baltic states (Basingstoke, 2010) and Andrejs Plakans, A concise history of the Baltic states (Cambridge, 2011).