General Assembly

ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING 2002

Minutes of the NSC Annual Business Meeting held on 21 June 2002.

July 2002.

Welcome
The President began the Annual Business Meeting by thanking Norfolk County Council for hosting the 11^th General Assembly.

Annual report presented by the President
The President presented his Annual Report, which was subsequently accepted. The full report can be obtained from www.northsea.org/news.

The President mentioned, for example, that he was very pleased to welcome the new members from Buskerud and Nordland in Norway and the East of England Regional Assembly consisting of the counties of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, together with the existing member counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

The President was also pleased to present the document “The North Sea Commission - From Vision to Action”, which had been circulated among delegates. The full document can be down-loaded from the http://www.northsea.org/Contacts/nscorder.htm or ordered from the NSC Secretariat. It lists the long-term goals of the North Sea Commission as well as some specific actions, which the NSC will strive for during the coming years. The President also encouraged the NSC member regions to go through the document and find the specific action, which each region would like to concentrate on.

Some specific initiatives were mentioned which the Thematic Groups had carried out over the year; in particular, the Transport Group’s response to the White Paper, the joint conference between the Transport Group and the Environment Group held in Aarhus in April, and the 5^th North Sea Conference which many of the Thematic Groups and the NSC Secretariat had been involved in. They had indeed managed to influence the Ministerial Declaration, which was very promising.

The NSC Fisheries Partnership was also mentioned for its pioneering work and as it was one of the 7 first Interreg Projects to be approved funding is secure for the coming years.

Finances
The Executive Secretary presented the accounts for 2001. They showed an income of 117.000 Euro, but after the close of the accounts, another 5.000 had been received due to a late payment. The item “travel and accommodation” was much higher than budgeted, mainly due to extraordinary trips such as those in connection with the 5^th North Sea Conference. The accounts for 2001 were accepted without any comments.

The budget for 2003 was presented and accepted. At their meeting on 19 June, the Executive Committee had accepted some new members; East of England Regional Assembly, Nordland and Buskerud. This will mean that income will increase, and a small surplus is expected at the end of the year.

The budget for 2003 was accepted without any comments.

Election

Following the adoption of the revised NSC Charter last year – where the Executive Committee members where elected for a 2 year period, only three countries needed to elect new substitutes. The new substitutes, who were accepted by the General Assembly, are listed in bold.

The Executive Committee now comprises of the following: 

Presentation by the NSC Thematic Groups

Fisheries Group
The Chairman, Harry Jensen, pointed out that members of the Fisheries Group have been involved in the setting up of the Fisheries Partnership and had looked at the effects of predators. However, the group would also like to be involved in the Environment Groups work concerning off-shore windmills in order to try to find out what effect this type of windmill has on fisheries.

Since the last General Assembly, the Fisheries Group has held a conference in Denmark on predation and technical interaction. It was a very good conference, as it legitimised discussion of predation.

The Fisheries Group has also managed to influence the ministerial declaration for the 5^th North Sea Conference. The reform of the CFP will also play a great role in the work of the group. The co-ordinator expressed concern over the content of the CFP.

Cllr. Sandy Cluness, Shetland, was welcomed as vice-chair to the group.

The plans for the future involve a seminar in Sweden in January 2003 on holistic management of inshore fisheries. The group also plans to look at the benefits and disadvantages of off-shore wind energy, the changing role of women in fishing and rural communities and to develop closer working relationships with Brussels over the CFP reforms. Ann Bell thanked Harry Jensen, Tony Hawkins and Aberdeenshire Council for all their work and support.

Fisheries Partnership
Tony Hawkins, Chairman of the Fisheries Partnership, briefly mentioned progress to date. It was established 2 ½ years ago and has had 5 meetings so far. There are 16 partners coming from main fishing research organisations and fishermen’s organisations. The Fisheries Partnership has now been granted Interreg IIIB funding until 2005.

Over the next few years, the group hopes to change the system of advice to make it more effective and open and to assist the scientists in collecting detailed information. It is also hoped that other sectors can be brought in, such as environmentalists, fish merchants etc. A Regional Review Panel is also expected to be set up. Things are moving very fast with meetings in both July and August.

Business Development Group
Vivien Collie presented the annual report of the Business Development Group. She took over the post as co-ordinator in the spring 2002, so she has not been involved for very long yet. It is apparent that economic development and business development are carried out in different ways in the various North Sea countries and that the countries have different approaches to this. The group has therefore sent out a questionnaire, which should give a better understanding of the differences.

The group held a meeting in the Netherlands in April, at which the Education & Research Group also attended. This has resulted in the two groups working jointly on a project.

The Business Development Group is otherwise involved in E-businesses, business parks, biotechnology, assistance for start-up businesses, business development in rural areas, organic farming and water management.

The Business Development Group is also working closely with the other thematic groups; they supported the seminar held on 18^th June together with the Culture & Tourism Group, are working with the Fisheries Group on women and Vivien Collie will attend the next meeting of the Transport & Communication Group.

Vivien finished by thanking the chairman of the group, Anne McGovern, the organisers from Norfolk who organised the study tour and the group members, and she pointed out that she is looking forward to becoming even more involved in the work of the group.

Culture and Tourism Group
Geir Sør-Reime presented the annual report from the group. He had decided to concentrate his report on Youth Culture. A North Sea Youth Festival, which the NSC is co-financing, will be held in Kristiansand, Norway, on 4^th-8^th September. Young people from most NSC member regions will participate and be able to present their different skills but also take part in workshops for developing new skills. Workshops range from everything from film, music, drama, to juggling and painting. At the end of the festival, there will be a big joint concert/performance, which will be a mix of genres.

Geir also mentioned the seminar, which his group had organised in connection with the General Assembly. It was a very interesting seminar with about 70 delegates. It also followed on well from the conference held at Duff House in Scotland in the spring 2001. The Culture & Tourism Group will continue its work on presenting best practice projects and success stories from the North Sea region.

Education & Research Group
The co-ordinator of the relatively new Thematic Group, Ann Brown, presented the annual report. She started by welcoming the new vice-chair to the group, Ted Harris from Aberdeen City. The group has now existed for almost 1 ½ years. Much work has been carried out, but there are not many concrete examples yet. Last year, Ann Brown presented a long list of projects. These have now been reduced to just a couple of projects, which the group would like to pursue.

The group currently has 2 full meetings a year and some PWG meetings, but members of group are currently looking at other methods of working.

The Education & Research Group has a big role to play in encouraging cross-group co-operation between all the Thematic Groups, and members have already taken part in meetings of the other Thematic Groups. Ann Brown pointed out that she is looking forward to extending this co-operation still further.

Ann finished by thanking Suffolk County Council for its support. Having the post as co-ordinator has helped her to work more corporately within Suffolk Council, which has been very advantageous. She also thanked the chairman in his absence and the NSC Secretariat.

Transport & Communication Group
Jon Halvard Eide presented the report from the Transport & Communication Group. He had decided to concentrate his report on the Sustainable Transport conference, which was held in Aarhus, Denmark, in the spring together with the Environment Group. It had brought together best practice example from around the North Sea and was very well attended. The group is now progressing plans for developing a bid under Interreg IIIB dealing with sustainable transport. It is expected to include recurring conferences like the one held in Aarhus, Research and Development, a mobile education and awareness campaign and PR and media related work. It is very important to have partners from all regions, but there will be one co-ordinating partner in each country. Partners are supposed to contribute with 5000 Euro for 3 years, which can be either in money or in kind. Details will be sent out to all regions in due course.

Environment Group
Per Hörberg presented the annual report for the group. The Environment Group has carried out a review of the Porsgrunn Challenge. Regions have listed where they have expertise and where they would like to work together with other regions. Lists of these regions will be circulated to everybody over the summer. At the Political Meeting on 19^th June, Jane Hore from Suffolk County Council described how Suffolk has implemented the Porsgrunn Challenge.

Per Hörberg has also been heavily involved in the 5^th North Sea Conference, which has been mentioned in the President’s Annual Report and which will also be the content of one of the resolutions.

The Environment Group’s Annual Meeting and Conference in Varberg last year has resulted in an Interreg project proposal on rural development, which is being led by Viborg Amt. Per hoped all regions would participate.

Finally, Per Hörberg finished off by mentioning the next Annual Meeting and Conference, which will take place in Blankenberge in Belgium on 7^th-8^th November 2002. The theme this year is renewable energy and in particular wind energy.

Per Hörberg also thanked the Chair, Gunn Marit Helgesen, the vice-chair, Alison McInnes, and the NSC Secretariat.

The President thanked all the Thematic Groups for all their hard work and the co-ordinators for presenting their annual reports.

CPMR Activities
Sandra Mezzadri, CPMR, presented a report on current activities of the CPMR. 

During the last year, the CPMR has focussed on two main areas; transport and environment. The CPMR has been working with all the geographical commissions, including the NSC, on the reform proposed by the EU this year in the White Paper on transport, and she was very pleased for the NSC contributions.

As far as the environment is concerned, the CPMR has been working on various aspects, such as governance, maritime safety, coastal zone management etc.

More details on the various aspects of the CPMR’s work can be found on their website www.cpmr.org.

Sandra finished off by inviting everyone to attend the next CPMR General Assembly, which will take place in Ioannina in Greece on 18^th-20^th September 2002.

Status on the Interreg IIIB programme for the North Sea
Programme Manager, Lorraine George gave an update on the Interreg programme for the North Sea. The Secretariat now has 12 members of staff from 8 different countries.

Since the programme was approved on 13th December 2001, the Secretariat has organised a large number of seminars and meetings, as well as the Directoria, which took place on 19th June. The first call for projects has been finalized, which resulted in 7 projects being approved with a total amount of 15 mill. Euro in funding. The next call will close at the end of September 2002, and it is expected that the calls will be at the same time each year. Lorraine stressed the importance of moving on from Interreg IIC, which means more concrete projects rather than studies.

The European Commission also plans to use the implementation material produced by the Interreg Secretariat for the accession countries.

Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy
Struan Stevenson, MEP and President of the EU Fisheries Committee, gave a very interesting speech about the EU’s fishing policy. The full report can be found on www.northsea.org/news.

In solving some of the problems, which face fishing communities today, he mentioned the importance of having a group like the NSC Fisheries Partnership and he highly recommend it to the EU. He also pointed out that he hoped the NSC would become involved in the debate and try to follow up on North Sea interests.

Resolutions and Political Statements

Copies of the resolutions can be found on www.northsea.org/news.

On the White Paper on Transport and the TEN-T Review: Regional Governance Issues
This resolution, which was presented by Highland Council, was accepted by all delegates and will subsequently also be presented at the CPMR General Assembly.

A Resolution in response to the European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide
This resolution, which was drafted by the NSC Transport & Communication Group, was presented and accepted by all delegates.

The 5^th International Conference on the protection of the North Sea – The Bergen Declaration
This resolution, which was presented by SAVOS, was accepted by all delegates.

12^th General Assembly 2003
The North Sea Commission has been invited to hold the 12^th NSC General Assembly in 2003 in Germany. The exact dates and venue will be announced as soon as possible.

Any Other Business
Nothing to report.

Closing remarks
The President thanked the delegates for coming and hoped they had experienced some interesting days in Norfolk. He also thanked Norfolk County Council for hosting this General Assembly and for all the hospitality which had been offered. He hoped that all delegates would agree that they could look back on some very busy and interesting days, full of interesting discussions and fruitful debates.

Until the next General Assembly, where the President and the Executive Committee will be elected, the President encouraged all delegates to consider how the NSC best puts together the strongest team to take all the visions of the NSC forward for the coming years.

Finally, he thanked the NSC Secretariat for their contribution to a successful General Assembly.

Karen Greve Somerset
Assistant Executive Secretary
North Sea Commission