Transport and Communications Group

Minutes of meeting in the NSC Transport & Communications group, Northamptonshire, 23 – 24 January 2003

Present:

Jan Hallberg, Chair, Västra Götaland region (Swe)
Jim Wade, Vice Chair, Northamptonshire (Eng)
Jon Halvard Eide, Co-ordinator, Vest-Agder fylkeskommune (Nor)
Dennis Freeman, Aberdeenshire Council (Sco)
Flemming Wennike, Ringkøbing Amt (Den)
Hanne Marie Sørensen, Viborg Amt (--"--)
Lars Dagnæs, South-Jutland region (--”--)
Brian Sorensen, Aarhus Amt (--”-)
Odd Moldestad, Sør-Trøndelag fylkeskommune (Nor)
Hans Jürgen Hett, Schleswig Holstein (Ger),
Chris Kutesko, Norfolk (Eng) (part of the meeting)
Sarah Fothergill, Northamptonshire (Eng)
Ian Achurch Northamptonshire (Eng)
Brian Welch Northamptonshire (Eng)
Marjolein Zwerver, Province/Sea Port of Groningen (Holl)
Henrik M. Jensen, NSC Secretariat Viborg 

Apologies
Gordon Flemming, Dundee City Council (Sco)
Maria A. Larsson, Västra Götaland region (Swe)
Wim Stubbe, Euregio Scheldemond (Belgium)
Claus Rehder, Lower Saxony (Ger)

Summary of attendance: 16 persons, representing 12 regions from 7 NSC member countries. 10 of the regular members present also attended the previous meeting in Schleswig-Holstein on 1 November 2002.

The Chair, Mr. Jan Hallberg welcomed the new Vice Chair of the group, Cllr. Jim Wade of Northamptonshire, and hoped that this meeting would give him a good introduction to the work of the group.

Item 01/03: Minutes of meeting in Schleswig-Holstein 31.10-01.11.02

The minutes were approved

Item 02/03: Co-operation with the NSC Business Development group (BDG)

In December, the group received an invitation from the Co-ordinator of the NSC BDG to a joint meeting on port and shipping issues at the Norwegian coastliner “Hurtigruta” in the period 12 – 14 March. The Co-ordinator had distributed preliminary information on the meeting in December. The idea of a joint meeting came up at the BDG-meeting on 5-6 December last year.

The meeting welcomed this initiative as a good opportunity to further explore and develop the co-operation potential between the Transport- and BDG. It was also noted that the selected themes for the meeting are in accordance with the priorities of the survey on business-relevant transport issues conducted before the meeting of the Transport group in Heide, Schleswig Holstein, on 1 November last year.

The meeting also assumed that the joint meeting would be a good occasion to discuss and prepare the joint seminar between the two groups on ICT and broadband technology (cf. minutes from meeting in Heide, item 19/02). It was however proposed to postpone this seminar to the autumn of 2003 in order to allow for sufficient preparations (settlement of dates, venue, identification and hiring of speakers, development of programme etc.).

The group was encouraged to come up with items and speakers for the meeting. It was assumed that speakers for the joint meeting on 12 – 14 March could be found within the network of the Interreg 3B-project “Northern Maritime Corridor”.

Interreg 3B-seminar on the Information society and spatial development in Stavanger 23 – 24 January.

Short time before the meeting, the Co-ordinator had been informed about the above-mentioned seminar from a member of the group. The programme and a paper for the seminar had been distributed with the background papers for this meeting. The seminar had apparently been initiated because the Interreg Secretariat has had problems with deciding on ICT-related bids. The stated aim of the event was to support the development of strong transnational co-operation projects by bringing experts and potential partners together. Information society issues were among others covered through elaborating on issues in the Interreg North Sea Programme, by presenting best practice examples in the workshops and by demonstrating links to spatial development in general. 

The meeting found it regrettable that this meeting collided with the seminar as it would have been useful to attend in relation to our work with ICT-issues. However, nobody was aware of the seminar when deciding on the dates for this meeting.

The Co-ordinator had also learned that there would be a similar Interreg 3B-seminar on Transport in Vlaanderen, Belgium, in September 2003.

Decisions & follow-up:

• The meeting accepted the invitation for a joint meeting of the NSC BDG and Transport group on the Norwegian coastliner “Hurtigruta” 12 – 14 March, and encouraged members to participate
  
• The Co-ordinator should request his counterpart in the BDG to distribute a final invitation with registration procedures & deadlines, schedules and travel info, as well as a programme for the joint meeting as soon as possible. Suggestions for programme items might be forthcoming.
  
• Odd Moldestad asks Sør-Trøndelag’s representative in the NMC-project to consider possible speakers for the meeting. Everything else equal, one should primarily seek Norwegian speakers due to travelling time & costs.
  
• The group suggested to postpone the joint seminar (on ICT & broadband technology) with the BDG from the spring to the autumn of 2003 in order to gain more time for preparations The Co-ordinator informs his counterpart in the BDG thereof as soon as possible.

ICT

• The Co-ordinator contacts Wim Stubbe of Euregio Scheldemond in order to be briefed about the main outcome, and eventually receive minutes/reports of the Interreg 3B-seminar on ICT and spatial development in Stavanger 23 – 24 January. The Co-ordinator should also request the Interreg 3B-Secretariat to be put on the mailing list for similar events in the future. (An article on the seminar appears in Newsletter no 3 from the Interreg Secretariat. There will also be more detailed info in the event available on the Interreg homepage).
  
• The group should be represented at the Interreg 3B-seminar on Transport to take place in Vlaanderen, Belgium, in September 2003

Item 03/03: Exchange of information on current Interreg projects (cf. also 05/03)

Henrik Jensen, of the NSC Secretariat, gave a brief update on recent developments of the Interreg 3B North Sea-programme. Of the 21 projects which were up for consideration at the Steering Committee meeting on 25 – 26 November last year, 14 were approved. In the first two calls, 37 % of the total budget has been spent, which means that there is 83 mill. € left.

Information on Interreg projects
At the previous meeting in Heide on 1 November, it was decided that the members should provide the Co-ordinator with info on relevant Interreg-projects/bids that their regions are partners to or are otherwise acquainted with. Such info has so far only been received from the representative of Sør-Trøndelag Information on the project NorthEast Cargo Link (NECL) was distributed together with the background papers to the meeting.

Odd Moldestad gave a brief outline of the NECL project. The project is supported by and conducted in close co-operation with private enterprises, county authorities and municipalities in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia and the U.K. The aim of NECL is to promote and market new, speedy and safe intermodal transport solutions across The Mid-Nordic countries with connections from the East and West. NECL also aims to become an interesting alternative to avoid the transport congestion on the Continent, and now also in the southern parts of Scandinavia

Brian Welch then gave a brief presentation of a project idea from Northamptonshire called – ”Demand Responsive Journey to Work Transport”.

The purpose of the project is to examine, share experience and develop innovative approaches to sustainable transport options aimed at serving local community needs to access employment. The central aim of the project is to expand access to employment opportunities and encourage the use of more space efficient forms of transport thus reducing congestion and pollution resulting from the use of private cars.

In the UK the project will focus on setting up and operating a demand responsive transport service to link housing estates in the Northamptonshire town of Corby (population 53,000) to three large industrial estates located on the other side of the town.  The lack of sustainable transport choice can be a barrier to employment for local residents without access to the private car, who then become excluded from the market.

Mr. Welch informed that Northamptonshire would receive government funding to introduce a trial on a modest scale in Corby. This trial would give a clue as to how to develop the project further. Mr. Welch then asked for and received some advice from the group as to how the project could be developed as an Interreg 3B-bid. He was also advised to consult some of the best practice examples from the NSC Conference on sustainable transport in Aarhus last year. Cf. http://www.ntn.dk/Aarhus/papers.html

Decisions & follow-up:

• The group was advised to speed up the development of ongoing Interreg-bids as far as possible so that the budget and themes are not spent before applications could be submitted
  
• The group was advised to establish a contact with the national Interreg-representative of the Lead Partner’s country before an application is submitted, in order to secure due attention and possibly support for the project-bid.
  
• Group members should provide the Co-ordinator with information on Interreg-projects/bids that their regions are partners to, or that they otherwise know of.

Item 04/03: EU transport policies, co-operation with the CPMR

The discussion of this item was structured according to the “decision & follow-up section” of the corresponding item (22/02) in the minutes from the previous meeting.

EU

The identification of direct channels
At the previous meeting on 1 November last year, the group decided to explore and develop more direct channels towards the EU system, i.e. DGTREN, as well as the relevant sub-committees of the European Parliament (EP) and the Committee of Regions (COR).

In order to facilitate this task, the Co-ordinator distributed an organisational chart of the DGTREN and members-lists of the EP-and COR committees dealing with transport from their respective NSC countries.

The decision making process of the EU-system
Henrik Jensen of the NSC Secretariat distributed a paper called “EU legislation in the field of Transport policy” produced by the Brussels office of North-Jutland. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the complex decision making process of the EU-system. The paper is visualising the different stages of the EU decision making process in order to give a clue as to which level/unit to influence at which stage of the process. The paper is regarded to be applicable for all policy areas and will be distributed to the other NSC thematic groups as well.

Current standing and future process for the EU Transport White Paper

At the previous meeting of the group, the Co-ordinator was asked clarify this matter. Based on information from the Norwegian Transport Counsel in Brussels and the CPMR Secretariat, the Co-ordinator gave a brief on the issue as referred below, as well as distributing a paper elaborating on the brief below.

The White Paper (WP) was discussed at the EU Council (Prime Ministers, Heads of State) meeting on 17 – 18 June 2002, whereafter the Spanish Presidency drew the conclusions. It is not for the time being envisaged any further discussion of the WP in the EU Council. The profile of the conclusions drawn up by the Spanish Presidency differ from the original WP document from the Commission - putting greater emphasis on the role of transport for the economy and the competitiveness of the Union (free movement of goods and persons).

In December, the Transport Council reached a political agreement on the Marco Polo-programme with 70 mill euros for 2003-2006. 

The Transport Council has not reached a decision on the Commission's October 2001 proposal for a "limited" revision of the TEN-T, which included in particular, a list of six new priority projects to be added to the 14 Essen projects.

The “Transport Committee” of the European Parliament (Committee for Regional Policy,Tourisme and Transport) – RETT, issued a recommendation on the WP on 28 November 2002. The recommendation is going to be discussed by the Parliament in plenary in the near future. The RETT recommendation puts a stronger emphasis and is calling for an improvement on issues like sustainable mobility, road safety and maritime & intermodal transport.

The Commission on its side is following up on the various measures of the WP more or less as planned. In March, the Commission is expected to present a draft directive on infrastructure charging. There is reason to expect that such a proposal would trigger a comprehensive discussion – both professionally and politically, and that the handling of this issue will be time consuming.

Further info on COR-seminar on intermodal transport 2 October 2002, future seminars

At the previous meeting of the group, the Co-ordinator was requested to obtain further info on a COR-seminar on intermodal transport in Brussels on 2 October. The Co-ordinator had received a report from the COR secretariat, unfortunately only available in French and German. This report was distributed with the background papers for the meeting. However the press release on the seminar distributed at the previous meeting proved to be representative of the paper.

The Co-ordinator had also learned that the next transport seminar under the auspices of the COR, on “tarification of public services”, will take place in Lyon on 14 March.

Publication of the White Paper response in a European vide journal
After having considered the issue more thoroughly, Dennis Freeman felt that he until now had lacked sufficient knowledge on important aspects of the EU decision making process (whom to influence on what, when…) in order to write a targeted article on this subject. Without such knowledge, it wasn’t very likely that such an article would achieve very much. However, after listening to the presentation of a DGTREN-representative at the meeting of the CPMR Transport group in December (see below), he felt that he had got a better basis for writing an article. The paper distributed at this meeting on the EU decision making process was also assumed to be helpful for this purpose.  The meeting agreed to Freeman’s considerations, and requested him to draft an article as soon he felt he had the sufficient basis for it.

CPMR (see also 05/03)

Dennis Freeman and Jon Halvard Eide participated at a meeting of the CPMR Intercom group on transport in Toulouse on 12 – 13 December 2002. The meeting was attended by about 15 – 20 persons representing the Mediterranean-, Atlantic Arc and the NS Commission. Among the issues on the agenda were:

-reports on transport activities from geographical commissions (like the NSC)
-outline for an Interreg 3C-project on “transport policy consultations” (Aberdeenshire)
-revision of the TEN-T, the development of a CPMR proposal
-The Marco Polo Programme for promoting intermodal transport

Two reports from the meeting had been distributed among the background papers for this meeting. The same applies for a paper on transport corridors, prepared for the CPMR.

Eide made a presentation of the activities of the NSC Transport & Communications group. Freeman made a presentation of the Scottish sustainable transport project “Learn to let go” as well as of a draft 3C-bid on Transport policy consultations. Freeman and Eide felt that their presentations triggered a positive debate and interest for the NSC best practice approach to sustainable transport, incl. the need to induce voluntary behavioural change (Cf. the presentations of Don Nutts and Stephen Byfield at the Aarhus conference). Besides, they learned that also other geographical commissions/regions to some degree are working along the same lines.

Furthermore, the meeting discussed the development of concrete corridor proposals from the CPMR for the 2004 revision of the Trans European Network – TEN-T, (to be finalised to the CPMR General Assembly in September) incl. the issue of giving a concrete content to the White Paper concept of “Sea highways” (Cf. the previously distributed paper by Christian Reynaud). The CPMR has requested the geographical commissions, incl. the NSC, to draft proposals for TEN-T corridors within their area. We were requested to meet with the CPMR consultant Mr. Reynaud in order to discuss such proposals before the next meeting of the Intercom group.

 The meeting also discussed the EU Commission Marco Polo programme on the promotion of sea- and intermodal transport. It was informed that the maximum level of support for single projects would be 1 million Euro over 3 years.

The next meeting in the Intercom group will take place in the Basque region (Spain) in late March.

Decisions & follow-up:

• The group should study the distributed lists of European Parliament (EP-) and Committee of Region (COR-) members from their respective countries in order to consider the establishment of contacts with these, and eventually informing such members of the work of the NSC Transport group, i.e. providing them with the White Paper-response.
  
• At the advice of Dennis Freeman, the group agreed to postpone an eventual publication of the White Paper response in a European vide journal until more insight is gained on the EU decision-making process.
  
• Dennis Freeman will work out a revised version of the Interreg 3C-bid on “Transport policy consultations” and distribute it to the group through the Co-ordinator
  
• The group decided to establish a sub-group, consisting of Lars Dagnæs, Dennis Freeman and the Co-ordinator, to draft a proposal for the North Sea TEN-T corridors to be included in CPMR’s proposal to DGTREN. The sub-group should also have consultations with CPMR’s consultant Mr. Christian Reynaud in the process of drafting the proposal – preferably before the next meeting of the CPMR Transport group in March. The Co-ordinator contacts Mr. Reynaud to agree on dates and further procedures.

Item 05/03: Sustainable transport

Sustainable transport project (STP) as Interreg 3B-bid

Jan Hallberg informed that the region of Västra Götaland is willing to assume the role of lead partner in a North Sea STP Interreg 3B-bid. However, Västra Götaland would propose to remove the element of “mobile education & awareness campaign” from the project, and instead focusing on the implementation of 5 – 6 best practice examples in as many regions as possible, as well as hosting Aarhus-like conferences on sustainable transport on a recurring basis. The meeting agreed to the proposed changes and felt that they would make the project easier to sell to potential partners and less costly to implement.

Dennis Freeman informed on the state and progress of the similar Scottish project “Learn to let go”. This project will receive funds from the Scottish Executive in April this year. An updated leaflet on the project was distributed to the meeting.

The Co-ordinator warned that we could risk loosing momentum by linking the start-up of a STP too close to the Scottish project. The available Interreg funds would also diminish by each application round and this theme could furthermore be “used up” by similar projects being approved in the meantime.

Follow-up of Aarhus conference
In accordance with a decision from the previous meeting, the Co-ordinator had submitted a draft letter asking the regions to provide information on their actions & plans to implement best practice examples presented at the sustainable transport conference in Aarhus last year. The letter would be addressed to the top level of the regions (i.e. Presidents, Mayors etc.) and signed by the Chairs of the Environment and Transport groups. A draft letter was distributed with the background papers for the meeting.

The meeting endorsed the draft, except for that the letter’s description of the STP-bid should be changed in accordance with the agreed amendments referred to above.

Brian Sørensen proposed that the group should initiate a survey among the individual participants of the Aarhus conference on their opinions of different aspects of the conference, and its possible impacts. Such a survey is meant to supplement the letter referred to above and is assumed to provide important clues for future conferences.

Request to prepare a CPMR conference on sustainable transport
The Co-ordinator informed that the Transport Director of the CPMR, Mr. Patrick Anvroin, had requested the NSC to explore the options of preparing/hosting a major CPMR-conference on sustainable transport in late 2003/early 2004. This as a part of the effort to strengthen CPMR’s involvement in this field.

The meeting welcomed this request and felt that it could be regarded as an appreciation of the NSC role and efforts in promoting sustainable transport. A major CPMR conference would obviously serve to lift the issue higher up on the European agenda.

Draft letter on Maritime safety to North Sea governments
After the break-up of the vessel Prestige outside northwestern Spain in November last year, the CPMR reacted quickly and its Political Bureau adopted a declaration on maritime safety on 3 December. CPMR’s quick reaction must be seen on the background that the region most heavily affected by the Prestige accident is a member of the organisation.  

On this background, Jan Hallberg had together with his colleagues in Västra Götaland felt that the NSC should try to take the issue a bit further by focusing on the specific item of Port State Controls (PSC). This item is also contained in the CPMR declaration as well as being subject of an EU directive. Hallberg had then requested the Co-ordinators of the NSC Environment and Transport groups to draft a letter to be sent from the NSC President to the responsible authorities in all North Sea countries. The draft letter was circulated to the group before and discussed at the meeting. The letter is requesting the North Sea governments to provide information on the concrete measures being undertaken to improve PSC’s in compliance with the relevant EU directive and the CPMR declaration.

The primary objective of the letter is to promote and to attract more attention to the issue of maritime safety in the North Sea. This issue is a permanent challenge for the North Sea regions and Prestige-like accidents could just as well happen here if nothing is done to improve the situation. By requesting the North Sea Governments (Bundeslander in Germany) to provide information on the concrete measures, we are hopefully able to commit the Governments on this issue, and would have something to monitor future policies in this field against. As a side effect, the letter could hopefully also serve to profile the NSC as an organisation.

A reaction to the draft letter from Mr. Wim Stubbe of Euregio Scheldemond was referred in absentia. Mr. Stubbe felt that the perspective/motivation of the letter was far too limited, and that it, in addition to the ecological aspects, should also reflect social and economic aspects in line with a broad definition of sustainability. The meeting considered these arguments but didn’t agree to the amendments proposed by Mr. Stubbe. Although no conflicts were perceived between the ecological, economic and social aspects involved in the issue of maritime safety, the meeting still felt that the letter should focus as much as possible on concrete measures in order to "profit" from the high attention being paid to maritime safety in the aftermath of the Prestige accident.

Decisions & follow-up

Sustainable transport project (STP) Interreg 3B-bid

• The development of the STP should not be further delayed by linkages to other projects, i.e. the Scottish “Lean to let go-project”.
  
•   The group recommended that a STP Interreg 3B-bid should be submitted by the September 2003-deadline

• The group was pleased to learn that the region of Västra Götaland is willing to assume the role of lead partner in a STP Interreg 3B-bid, and approved of this “choice”.
  
• The group agreed to the proposal of Västra Götaland to remove the element of “mobile education & awareness campaign” from the STP, and instead focus on implementing 5 – 6 best practice examples in as many regions as possible, as well as hosting Aarhus-like conferences on a recurring basis.
  
• Lars Dagnæs drafts a revised description of the STP in consultation with Västra Götaland (Per Hørberg, Rolf Thor)

Follow-up of the Aarhus conference on sustainable transport

• The Co-ordinator re-drafts the description of the STP-bid contained in the draft letter on the follow-up of the Aarhus-conference in accordance with the amendments referred to above. A revised description of the STP (cf. the point above) should be attached to the letter.
  
• The group decided to conduct a survey among the individual participants of the Aarhus conference on their opinions of the conference, and their evaluation of its possible impacts. Brian Sørensen should provide the Co-ordinator with ideas for a survey questionnaire within 14 days. The Co-ordinator evaluates this outline and distributes it to the Co-ordinator of the Environment group for further consideration.
  
• On the basis of a request received from CPMR’s Transport Director Mr. Patrick Anvroin, the group agreed to explore the options of preparing/hosting a major CPMR-conference on sustainable transport in late 2003/early 2004. It should be explored whether it would be feasible to apply a best practice-approach as in Aarhus. The Co-ordinator informs the CPMR thereof and at the same time seeks to further clarify CPMR’s intentions and thoughts about such a conference. If a “CPMR-conference” could be realised, the Transport group would not initiate any other major NSC events on this subject.
  
• It should be considered in consultation with Västra Götaland whether the mentioned conference could also be a part of a STP Interreg 3B-bid.

Letter on Maritime safety

• The group adopted the draft letter submitted to the meeting without changes, and decided to request the NSC President Bent Hansen to sign and distribute the letter to the relevant authorities of the North Sea countries. One group member from each country should provide the NSC Secretariat with the addresses of the proper authorities in their country.
  
• Group members should send the NSC Secretariat a copy of possible press releases being made on the basis of the Maritime safety letter in different countries

Item 06/03: Genral NSC information

Henrik Jensen of the Secretariat in Viborg informed about current NSC issues.

Rural development project
Cf. item 23/02 in the minutes from the previous meeting in Heide. An updated project description was distributed among the background papers for the meeting.

The project is being developed as an Interreg 3B-bid and was originally scheduled for the March application round. Transport is one of 3 main themes alongside economic development and health & social services. Within transport, the project will focus on alternative public transport solutions in rural areas. The already comprehensive nature of the project does not allow for the inclusion of other important aspects/forms of the transport into consideration. A number of regions from all North Sea countries have expressed an interest to participate in the project, but not all of them have yet confirmed their participation and committed match funding. It has also been a challenge to find a common ground for the project across the different regions and countries involved. Because of this, the submission of an application might have to be postponed to the September round.

Newsletter
A new NSC newsletter, vol 12, was issued in January. The newsletter contains info on past and future NSC events, as well as an update on Interreg 3B. There are separate sections for each thematic group to which the Co-ordinator of the Transport group has also contributed. The newsletter can be downloaded from the NSC web site.

NSC General Assembly 2003, 18 – 20 June in Cuxhaven, Germany
Cf. item 23/02 in the minutes from the previous meeting in Heide.

On 11 December, the Co-ordinators of the NSC thematic groups met with the organising hosts in Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven to prepare the study tours of the General Assembly. The study tours seem well organised and prepared. The study tour on transport will take place in and around the seaport of Bremerhaven. It will cover modern container and car shipping terminals, traditional ship building complexes, a visit to the German Maritime Museum and presentations of e-projects taking into account aspects of tourism, economy, education and local governance. The Co-ordinator had a trial tour in Bremerhaven in December and he believes that the programme is both substantial and varied, also including a (unusual) flavour of tourism and culture.

The President and all members of the Executive Committee are up for election at this year’s General Assembly. Potential candidates should be identified.

“The EU regional policy beyond 2006” is the theme for the political meeting on 18 June. It is important that each national delegation checks out the position/situation in their country in relation to the regional policy. There is no doubt that a lot of money would go eastwards as a consequence of the upcoming enlargement. On this background, it would probably take a lot of lobbying to ensure funds for a new Interreg North Sea programme (no 4) when the current programme expires in 2006.

Membership issues
The Scottish border regions to England have applied for membership in the NSC.

The North East coast of England constitutes a hole in the NSC membership. It is a challenge to recruit those regions and the Secretariat would appreciate help from other  UK members to encourage the NorthEast England Councils to become members of the NSC.  This would obviously strengthen the UK network within the NSC.

Decisions & follow-up

• The NSC Secretariat requested the members of the group to encourage their regional politicians to attend the NSC General Assembly in Cuxhaven, Germany, on 18 – 20 June 2003.
  
• Vice Chair, Mr. Jim Wade of Northamptonshire was requested to use every possible opportunity to encourage the NorthEast England Councils to become members of the NSC. The NSC Secretariat in Viborg is happy to provide background & supportive information for such efforts.

Item 07/03: Date and venue for next meeting

• Joint meeting with the NSC Business group at “Hurtigruta” in Norway (departure from Bergen) 12 – 14 March (arriving in Trondheim)

Themes: Port development and shipping issues

• Next ordinary meeting in the Province of Groningen, Holland, 8 – 9 May 2003

Proposed items:

 -Sustainable transport project as an Interreg 3B-bid
 -Planning & preparation of a CPMR conference on sustainable transport
- Exchange of information on Interreg projects
-The future of the Interreg programme
-Planning of joint seminar with the Business Development group
-Proposals for North Sea corridors for the TEN-T revision

Item 08/03 Any other business

The Chair, Jan Hallberg, thanked Northamptonshire for having hosted an excellent meeting, and hoped that the meeting would inspire the whole EMRLGA region to active participation in the NSC.