County Governor Per-Ola Eriksson of Norrbotten County in Sweden will be the chairman of the Barents Regional Council for the next two years. On Tuesday Eriksson presented his program for the chairmanship where youth of The Barents Region will be given much focus.
- We would like to increase the participation of youth on all levels of the Barents Cooperation during our chairmanship. We believe that would strengthen the cross border cooperation and that the promotion of young entrepreneurs is of vital importance for this regions development, said Eriksson in his speech.
Transport strategy
The county administration board will strive to ensure a broader representation of young artists, students, specialists, entrepreneurs and other youths on all levels of Barents cooperation. Eriksson find it important that well educated and motivated youth are willing to stay on the High North and contribute to the development of the region.
The further priorities of the Norbotten chairmanship will be focused within infrastructure, research, environment, economic development, culture, indigenous people and promotion of the Barents cooperation.
Among these prioritized areas Eriksson highlighted the need for better east-west communication in the region.
-Norrbotten will continue lobbying for the adoption of a comprehensive Barents transport strategy that takes into account regional needs and realities. Particular attention will be paid to setting up regional transverse aviation and making border crossing smoother, the chairmanship program reads.
Internationl interest
With the growing international needs of energy and minerals from the Barents region, the regional council should focus on promoting the strategic role that the region could play in this development.
- This increased interest from all EU institutions is indeed a window of opportunity for us to ensure investments in infrastructure, education and research, thus securing further development of the Barents Region, says Eriksson.
Troms County in Norway has had the chairmanship for the two last years and thanked the representatives of the 13 Barents regional entities for the cooperation. County Governor Pia Svendsgaard said in her final remarks that it had been two very interesting years where Troms has been trying actively to strengthen the political cooperation of the region and thus visualize the importance of the regional level in the Barents Cooperation.
Svendsgaards feel that they have succeed in this, but at the same time she criticised the Russian regional governors for missing out on many of the meetings.
Read More: Barents Regional Council meeting without Russian governors
The meetings in Kiruna continues on Wednesday with the Foreing ministers meeting of the Barents Euro Arctic Council, which will be held in the visitor mine of LKAB.
