The two-day event, moderated by Lykke Friis, focused on key issues and future cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). Before the start of the conference, the board came together for its third Board Meeting in 2024.

The motto “Let’s fight for resilient and safe communities in the Baltic Sea Region” gave the leading impulse for the whole conference. The opening featured a warm welcome from BSSSC chairman Werner Schwarz, Minister for European Affairs of Land Schleswig-Holstein and Daniel Günther, Minister President of Land Schleswig-Holstein.

The first keynote speech was given by Prof.Bernd Henningsen as a representative of the Humboldt University Berlin and the Institute for Northern European Studies. The speech with the title “Let’s fight for resilient societies and communities” set the tone for the following panel discussion featuring local and regional leaders, parliamentarians, economic experts and youth representatives.

Key sessions on the first day included workshops on the topics of artificial intelligence in governance, sustainable city resilience through culture, munitions cleanup in the Baltic Sea, EU regional policy defense, and offshore wind energy development. The day ended with a talk led by youth representatives and a celebration of the Cultural Pearls cities 2024.

The Cultural Pearls evening event on September 19th featured a diverse and enchanting cultural program and fruitful networking and mingling at the Schauspielhaus Kiel.

The second day, September 20th, centered around regional security challenges, including disinformation, cyber-attacks and pipeline sabotage. The opening consisted of a video message from Anna Lührmann, state Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and a keynote by Egils Levits, former President of Latvia. These were followed by a panel with officials from Latvia, Finland, Germany and Lithuania, alongside youth and cultural input.

Workshops in the morning covered defence of democracy, Baltic Sea Region-Ukraine cooperation, Interreg project outcomes and hydrogen infrastructure in Northern Europe. The event concluded with youth discussions on future cooperation in the region and the presentation of the conference resolution by chairman Mr. Werner Schwarz.

A selection of photos as well as the material of the conference, including presentations and outcomes from the workshops can now be found here. The BSSSC secretariat would like to thank all speakers, workshop leaders and participants for their contributions. Thanks to you, we were be able to host an extremely successful conference that served as space for meetings and discussions as well as giving substantial impulses for future endeavours in the Baltic Sea Region.