Meeting of Committee of Senior Officials of Barents Euro-Arctic Council

PRESS RELEASE

The Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), which is made up of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and the European Commission, met under the chairmanship of Ambassador at Large Anton Vasiliev on May 28-29 in Syktyvkar.

The outcome of the 4th Barents Parliamentary Conference on the role of parliaments in ensuring the region's sustainable development, including the issues of public health, culture, education, environment protection and support for the indigenous peoples, was discussed. It was decided to prepare a survey of the concrete ideas and initiatives voiced at the Conference with a view to their substantive consideration in subsequent meetings of the BEAC CSO.

The results of the international conference ‘The Barents Region and Its Role in Europe,' held in Brussels in May, were reviewed. They are to help upgrade the profile of the Barents cooperation in Europe and to outline additional areas in which the European Union could contribute to strengthening BEAC cooperation.

The CSO approved the mandate of a newly created BEAC Working Group on Tourism, and the renewed mandate of the BEAC Working Group on Education and Research following approval of Petrozavodsk State University as the leader of this group. Progress in preparing a meeting of the BEAC Working Group on Energy was considered along with endorsing a number of specific cooperation projects, in particular, in the environment protection field. The CSO also began elaborating matters tied to the preparation of a BEAC ministerial session in Murmansk this upcoming October.

The members of the BEAC CSO were received by Head of the Republic of Komi Vladimir Torlopov.

June 1, 2009