Summary from CCB Board Meeting 17-19 March 2006

The CCB Board met in Uppsala, Sweden 17-19 March for its first meeting during 2006. The meeting was held in the premises of the CCB Secretariat at Östra Ägatan 53. All countries bordering the Baltic Sea were represented at the meeting, except for Denmark. Different matters were discussed.

Some of the items discussed were e.g. the coming CCB Baltic 06 Conference and the 15^th General Meeting, which was decided to be held in Ukraine outside Lviv 19-21 May. World Lab will be the organisation in Ukraine hosting the Conference. The theme for the conference was decided to be "Transboundary river cooperation in the Baltic Sea basin" including the two sub topics: transboundary river cooperation and sustainble agriculture.

Some new organisations have applied for observership and membership with CCB. The CCB Board gives a recommendation to the General Meeting, where the final decision on observership and membership will be taken. The Guide Environmental group, Kaliningrad, have been observers with CCB since 2002 and have now applied for full membership status. Three other organisations have applied for observership status with CCB, namely; Latvian Green Movement in Latvia, Association of Greens of Karelia, Russia and World Lab in Ukraine.

The Financial support granted to CCB from the EU for the current year 2006, is less than was recieved during the previous year 2005. This will mean that some budget items will have to be cut. This will also affect the CCB-SIDA project funding, which will be reduced compared to the year 2005.

For 2006 the Staffing capacity at the CCB International Secretariat will be: CCB Executive Secretary (100%), CCB Coordinator (100%), CCB Water Policy Officer (100%), CCB Administration Officer (50%), CCB Central- and Eastern Project Coordinator (25%) and CCB Bookkeeper (depending on workload).

The CCB Gender Strategy has been revised and upgraded. The revised strategy will in the near future be put on the web for downloading (http://www.ccb.se/GenderIssues.htm).

The Baltic Sea RAC has now been established and the Baltic RAC General Assembly took place on 15 March this year. The Secretariat is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. CCB is a member of the Executive Committe. Reine J Johansson, Chairman of the the Swedish Fishermen?s Federation, was elected as Chairman for the Baltic Sea RAC and as Vice Chairman, Katarina Veem from the WWF was elected. The Fisheries sector interests have 2/3 of the seats in the Executive Committe and other interest groups have 1/3 of the seats. CCB has got the task to organise the first meeting for the working group on management of the Baltic Salmon, which will be held before the next Baltic RAC Executive Meeting. The next Executive Meeting will be organised 19-20 June and here the Draft Recovery Plan for the the Baltic Cod will be decided upon. On behalf of CCB the board has appointed Gunnar Noren (CCB Executive Secretary) , Taavi Nuum (EGM, Estonia) and Piotr Gruszka (Green Fedration, Poland) to participate in the Baltic Sea RAC work.

CCB participated as usual in the HELCOM Conference and Commission Meeting, 7-9 March 2006. For CCB submission to the meeting see: http://www.ccb.se/statements.html

A list of the final granted CCB/SIDA projects for the current year 2006 will be put on the web in the nearest future (http://www.ccb.se/finance.html). Projects from non-EU countries are eligable for CCB-SIDA financing. For 2006 totally 23 projects will get support to be run by organisations in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

On 26 June-2 July CCB will run the traditional summer course "Our Common Baltic". 12 persons from the Baltic Sea region countries will participate. The aim of the course is to train CCB activists about the Baltic Sea, on aspects of nature, incl. environmental situation and of culture incl. traditional life-styles and modern sustainability options.

An e-mail group has been established for discussions and distribution of information on the planned Russian-German gas pipeline. Interested people can be connected to the interest group.

The sixth International Environmental Forum "Baltic Sea Day" was organised 22-23 March in St.Petersburg. Representatives from CCB Member organisations in St.Petersburg participated and presented CCB publications at the Conference.

The CBSS NGO Forum will take place in Sweden during the autumn 2006. The possible CCB participation in the Forum was discussed.

These were some of the items brought up at the Board Meeting. The CCB Board meets 3-4 times every year and next occassion will be in May in connection with the coming CCB Annual Conference and General Meeting in Lviv.

Eva Frössling
CCB Coordinator

05 April 2006
Uppsala