Policy area: Regional policy
Higher ambitions, more cooperation and more action in collaboration with those who live and work in the arctic were some of the conclusions when the Swedish crown princess Victoria, Swedish foreign minister Ann Linde, EU foreign service and the European Commission hosted the EU Arctic Forum and the EU Indigenous peoples' dialogue in Umeå during the 3-4 October. The EU Arctic Forum is the result of North Sweden’s and the network for the Northern Sparsely Populated Areas work to put the EU:s own arctic regions in focus of the EU:s ambitions to contribute to sustainable development within the arctic region.
The yearly European Week of Regions & Cities (EWRC) has held on October 7th – 10th, where regions and cities get the opportunity to showcase how they implement the EU: s cohesion policy, the regional development work that they do. During the week the North Sweden office organized a seminal on green energy transition in sparsely populated areas, Umeå municipality participated in several seminars and Region Västerbotten organized a culture event. Read on for how the regions participated during EWRC.
EU’s commissioner of health and food safety, Vytenis Andriukaiti, visited Umeå Monday September 9th to meet with representatives of Region Västerbotten. Politicians and officials from all over the region were there to discuss issues within health- and healthcare as well as public health. - We should do more to increase the populations health. If we agree on measures and implement them together, we can increase the mental, physical and social health within the whole union, said Vytenis during his visit.
At the twenty-second session of the Europaforum North Sweden (EFNS) in Piteå, the four northernmost counties in northern Sweden adopted five common policy positions on circular economy, reception of migrants, cohesion policy, wind power and biomass
On 21-26 February, a team from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) visited four regions in northern Sweden as part of an in-depth study. The ongoing OECD study includes 14 regions in the Northern Sparsely Populated Areas (NSPA) in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The study is carried out by this expert team together with other study groups, provided with questionnaires and data for an overall analysis of the challenges and opportunities the different regions and NSPA are facing, to further manage to create proposals for sustainable growth.
07 Mar 2016 European Commission visit to northern Sweden
07 Dec 2015 The Connection between Europe and the Arctic
26 Apr 2015 NSPA seminar with the OECD in Piteå
23 Mar 2015 NSPA has formally initiated the work with the OECD study
24 Nov 2014 NSPA seminar on "Transport infrastructure in the European Arctic"
12 Nov 2014 The Silver Road Corridor - strengthening regional cooperation
10 Nov 2014 The Arctic on the agenda during NSPA’s forum in Bodø
16 Oct 2014 Smart growth a theme on NSPA side event during Open Days 2014
