During the Oct. 8, 2009 meeting on agriculture a proposed flagship project "Creating a network on implementing food and feed legislation" was discussed, partly based on a presentation given by senior veterinary officer Sebastian Hielm from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Department of Food and Health. The presentation was primarily aimed at giving the meeting delegates a better idea of what a flagship project could signify within the context of the Baltic Sea Strategy, and ended with some suggestions for possible areas of enhanced cooperation between the Baltic states. The suggested possible areas for cooperation were:
- joint animal disease contingency exercises
- enlarging the new Nordic scheme on monitoring of food intake and exercise to interested Baltic countries
- setting up a group of Baltic experts to discuss and resolve technical barriers to trade with Russia
In the discussion that followed, other parties expressed some polite intrest in the presented themes, but clearly many wanted the chosen flagship project to represent an area with more tangible benefits than those suggested by Hielm. After an upbeat presentation by Mr Tryggvi Felixson of the Nordic Council of Ministers, there seemed to be widespread agreement that any chosen Flagship project should as far as possible be based on existing structures and networks, so as to be able to get off to a smooth start easily. Of those themes presented earlier, the veterinary contingency exercises would seem to fit this bill well, as they have been joint Nordic_Baltic exercises for a few years already, and could easily involve Poland, Germany and Russia as well, if interest on behalf of these countries was shown. On behalf of the member states and organisations present, some other important remarks were made as well, viz.:
- the EU Commission stated that the Flagships and examples for work to be undertaken should not be seen as prescriptive; it is up to the participating countries to decide on what work would benefit from Baltic cooperation. Also, the timeline for the entire strategy is open: while the Commission hopes that especially the flagships would deliver a status report within approximately a year, the entire strategy is open-ended and new work can be undertaken whenever there seems to be reason to do so.
-as a general comment the delegation of Lithuania expressed that in their view the proposed flagship on food and feed legislation is way too big, and that actual projects should focus on details in implementation of individual legislative acts.
Summing up the discussion, the chairman and coordinator of Priority area 9, State Secretary Jouni Lind concluded as follows:
-as no definitive areas of interest within the flagship project has been identified, it would seem advisable to send out an enquiry on the matter to the Baltic states. Such an enquiry might generate improved ideas to work on.
-Food and feed legislation is indeed a very broad area, and the flagship might benefit from focussing on certain areas (e.g., health, trade, administrative burdens, best practices, etc.) as means of going forward.
-Sebastian Hielm and Finland shall take the lead of the flagship project -the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Department of Food and Health shall be in contact with the Nordic Council of Ministers working group on food issues, to ask all Nordic countries whther they in any way oppose the enlargement of some Nordic projects to concern the entire Baltic Sea region.
The Flagship project will take part in the workshop meeting that is scheduled to January 21 and 22, 2010, in Helsinki.