Saint Petersburg hosts Baltic area gathering

A conference on subregional cooperation among states of the Baltic region will be held here October 23-25. This is the 11th such conference and is one of the events planned to mark the city's 300th anniversary, Rosbalt was told by the press service of the city administration. The main theme of the conference is 'Linking Future and Present': the participants will discuss the 'Northern Dimension' program as a blueprint for the Baltic region. On October 23 there will be preliminary meetings of working groups of the organization. Addressing the official opening will be Valentina Matvienko, governor of Saint Petersburg, Vadim Tulpanov, chairman of the Saint Petersburg assembly, Viktor Lopatnikov, the Saint Petersburg representative of the Internal Affairs Ministry of the Russian Federation, and other high-ranking persons. The next two days will be devoted to consideration by the working groups of various aspects of the 'Northern Dimension' program.

The Organization for Subregional Cooperation Among Baltic Sea States is a non-governmental organization of Baltic Sea countries that was founded at a conference in Stavanger (Norway) in October 1993. At present, the organization does not have a fixed membership but is open to all 163 regions of the Baltic Sea states. It does not have its own budget. The headquarters of the organization are currently in Gdansk (Poland). The organization conducts its work in the form of yearly conferences of representatives of the subregions at which key decisions regarding the directions for regional development in the Baltic Sea area are made. Saint Petersburg has been active in the organization since the organization's founding. A representative of Saint Petersburg was part of the management of the organization from 1999 through 2001.