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loose structures, voluntary membership and a flexible agenda. Anyway, just as the
Baltic Forum, this version of a ‘new style’ regionalist formation never took shape. At
the time it was presented to the public, in summer 1992, the CBSS had already been
established as the model case of Baltic Sea regionalist cooperation. Looking at these
inner-German events, two ‘German’ factors can be identified that dominated the
“construction phase” of Baltic Sea Regionalism:133
– German party-politics; most importantly, disputes between social democrats and
liberals;
– internal struggles between the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein and the German
Foreign Ministry.
This study does not intend to focus on the specific role and importance of domestic
discourse within the single states involved in the process of post-1989 regionalism.
However, these observations help to characterise the general course of events in the
BSR. This example gives important information about how Baltic Sea Regionalism
evolved in its early stages, to what extent individual players shaped the development of
cooperative links in the region. Interestingly, the emergence of the new inclusive ‘Baltic
Sea Region’ occurred in a highly competitive political atmosphere. There is a certain
degree of irony in the fact that instead of pooling the efforts in order to achieve common
or at least very similar goals, some region-builders decided to mingle their regionalist
ambitions with trite every day politics. However, this sort of competition between
different region-building projects might have contributed to the number and variety of
cooperative formations present in the region of today. While in the case of Engholm’s
Baltic Forum, an innovative regionalist vision has actually been outperformed by its
intergovernmental counterpart, in other cases, these dynamics might have inspired the
creation of a parallel and competing region-building project. Today, the BSR allows
both functional overlap and constructive competition.
III. The Council of the Baltic Sea States
The CBSS was founded in 1992 under the overall objective to create a regional forum
for dialogue and coordination between the national governments of the Baltic Sea
States. The establishment of the CBSS was based on a Danish-German initiative
launched Genscher and Ellemann-Jensen, then liberal foreign ministers of Germany and
Denmark.134
133 See ibd., here p. 5 and 18.
134 Catellani points out that the role of the Danish foreign minister was less proactive than it might have
appeared. The fact that the CBSS was launched right after a bilateral meeting held in Copenhagen
did support the impression that Denmark had been the driving force behind the initiative. “Uffe
Ellemann Jensen [...] contributed substantially both to the creation of the CBSS and to the
development of a more assertive stand by Denmark within the framework of the European
integration process. However, the importance of his activism should not be overestimated, especially
in the light of the role Germany played in connection with the launch of the initiative.” Genscher in
turn was bound by the consideration that a German initiative in the BSR involving Russia as a
partner would have appeared inappropriate for the geopolitical allocation of Germany in the New
Europe. See CATELLANI Nicola: The EU’s Northern Dimension. Testing a New Approach to
Neighbourhood Relations? Utrikespolitiska Institutet, Research Report 35, Stockholm 2003, p. 5.
52
Its very nature and structural constitution turns the CBSS into much more than ‘just
another regional organisation’ as it unites the major regional actors on the governmental
level, comprising all states bordering the Baltic Sea, including Russia as well as
Norway, and the European Commission.135 Hence, the CBSS was the first organisation
to bring the Commission, Russia, Germany, the Baltic republics and the Nordic
countries together at one table. Given its direct institutional link to the European Union
and the unique constellation of members, right from the beginning, the CBSS
constituted a sort of umbrella organisation for all forms of cooperation in the BSR.136 In
fact, the CBSS was officially intended to serve as a point of reference for all forms of
Baltic regional cooperation. One of the constitutive factors of this special status of the
CBSS results from its close links to the European integration process. The CBSS has
considerably backed the EU enlargement process. After the accession of Sweden and
Finland, the CBSS agenda has been gradually syntonised with the relevant EU policies.
A similar effect could be observed following the 2004 enlargement round. Due to its
close institutional ties with the European Commission, the CBSS also actively
contributed to the development of the EU ND. After the launch of the policy in 1997,
the CBSS was formally involved in the implementation process.
The CBSS benefits from the fact that it has focussed on security issues from the beginning.
It has a top-down logic much in line with that of the European Union, a central player in
setting the dominant thinking of today’s security co-operation in Europe. […] The CBSS
has a role to play as the catalyst of a security community much like Norden.137
Another decisive factor was the strategic potential that the formal involvement of Russia
bore for the bilateral relations of the EU. Working closely together with the CBSS not
least opened additional channels for communication and provided a multilateral forum
for consultation and debate with this important strategic partner.138 Since 2001, the
CBSS has also intensified the efforts of coordinating its activities with those of other
regional organisations in the Baltic Sea area by way of annual coordination meetings.
This should generally provide a more structured channel for the involvement of other
stakeholders. The Council also has appointed a number of strategic partners that on
these occasions get the opportunity to voice their concerns and coordinate their efforts
with the CBSS and other organisations. In this regard, the CBSS has established
particularly close links to the BSSSC, the UBC, VASAB 2010, and HELCOM.139
Today, the CBSS seeks to act as a hub between the European Commission and other
regional organisations. In 2001, the CBSS has taken the initiative to hold annual
135 See PETERSEN Nikolaj: Denmark and the European Union 1985-96. In: Cooperation and Conflict,
No. 2/1996, pp. 185-210, here p. 189.
136 See CATELLANI Nicola: The EU’s Northern Dimension. Testing a New Approach to Neighbourhood Relations? Utrikespolitiska Institutet, Research Report 35, Stockholm 2003, p. 4.
137 BONNÉN Preben/SØSTED Michael: The Origin, Development and Perspectives of Nordic Cooperation in a New and Enlarged European Union. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Nr. 1/2003, pp. 19-32, here p. 29.
138 See HUBEL Helmut/GÄNZLE Stefan: The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) as a Sub-
Regional Organisation for ‘soft security risk management’ in the North-East of Europe. Report to the
Presidency of the CBSS, 18 May 2001, p. 19.
139 Other strategic partners are the Baltic Development Forum (BDF), the Baltic Sea Chambers of
Commerce Association (BCCA), the Baltic Sea Forum ‘Pro Baltica’, the Baltic Sea NGO Forum
(BSNF), and the Baltic Sea Trade Union Network (BASTUN). For details see official CBSS website
www.cbss.st [26 November 2007].
53
coordination meetings with the heads of a group of subregional organisations. Six such
meetings have been held to date: 2001 in Riga/Latvia, 2002 in Lillehammer/Norway,
2003 in Klaipeda/Lithuania, 2004 and 2005 in Malmö/Sweden, and 2007 in
Bornholm/Denmark. In addition to providing a more structured channel for CBSS
Special Participants, these meetings were also thought to allow the partner organisations
to voice their concerns and coordinate their efforts with the CBSS and other regional
actors. Two specific agenda issues have dominated the meetings so far: coordination of
input to the elaboration and implementation of the EU Northern Dimension Action Plan
(ND AP), and improved coordination of activities and information flows among the
participating organisations. The CBSS tries to fulfil the function of communicating the
collected positions to the European Commission. The CBSS has also launched an
internet portal for the BSR in order to provide a single entry point and information
source on the wide range of Baltic Sea regional cooperation activities.140
IV. Visions and Constructed Realities – The History Tool
The post Cold War discourse on the emergence of a ‘new’, ‘comprehensive’ and
‘inclusive’ BSR was dominated by visionary and elocutionary images. Generally, many
of the regional and sub-regional initiatives that emerged in the BSR after the end of the
Cold War were based upon rather enthusiastic ambitions, stressing the normative power
of the cooperative spirit of the past. Many promoted Baltic Sea Regionalism by
preaching the existence of some sort of natural habit or inclination to cohesion and
togetherness present in the area, and occasionally helped themselves with the history
tool: Various initiators of regional and sub-regional cooperation referred to history,
presenting a carefully selected set of historical events of regional cooperation in order to
support their regionalist visions.
Trade relation or political domination in the pre-nation state era was employed to present
region-building as a natural process. A specific version of history suggested a certain
naturally founded, generic community of destiny in the BSR. Hanseatic trade or the geopolitical figure of Dominium Maris Baltici or Mare Nostrum were among the most
spectacular constructs.141
In 1990, for example, a number of leading politicians, journalists, authors, academics
and intellectuals met in the Finnish town of Kotka in order to discuss the perspectives of
a ‘New Hansa’, and thereby created another label for the vision of a peaceful and
prosperous BSR that would tie in with its historical antecedents: the “Spirit of
Kotka”.142 The discursive creation of a certain cohesive spirit is an important factor in
most region-building projects.
Region-building begins in the field of ideas and public debates, and is supposed to convince
participants of a common background by making common values come into force.143
140 See Official Website of the Baltic Sea Portal www.balticsea.net [28 December 2007].
141 MUSIAL Kazimierz: Education, Research and the Baltic Sea Region-building. In: Id. (ed.):
Approaching Knowledge Society in the Baltic Sea Region. Gda?sk/Berlin 2002, pp. 42-60, here p.
47.
142 See SUNDQVIST Ulf: The Spirit of Kotka. In: Framtider international, 1/1991, p. 4.
143 MAKARYCHEV Andrey S.: Where the North Meets the East. Europe’s ‘Dimensionalism’ and
Poland’s ‘Marginality Strategy’. In: Cooperation and Conflict, No. 3/2004, pp. 299-315, here p. 301.
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References
Zusammenfassung
Seit 1989 ist es im Ostseeraum zu einer explosionsartigen Entstehung einer Vielzahl von regionalen Initiativen und Zusammenschlüssen gekommen. Der Ostseeraum weist bis heute eine europaweit einzigartig hohe Konzentration an kooperativen regionalen Strukturen auf. Diese bilden gemeinsam ein enges Netzwerk von Vereinigungen, die unter dem Überbegriff der "Ostseezusammenarbeit’ interagieren.
Diese Studie analysiert die Hintergründe dieses regionalen Phänomens oder so genannten „Ostsee-Rätsels“ auf Basis eines Vergleichs zwischen den Regionalpolitiken zweier staatlicher Schlüsselakteure, Schweden und Finnland, wobei der europäische Integrationsprozess als übergeordneter Bezugsrahmen für die Untersuchung dient.