Baltic Sea Forum gathered together 170 Finnish Baltic Sea region actors

Baltic Sea Forum, organized by Centrum Balticum and the city of Turku, gathered together Baltic actors from around Finland to Turku on 14.-15.5.2009.

The first day of the second national Baltic Sea Forum in Radisson SAS Hotel Marina Palace, in Turku, consisted of current expert addresses. The city mayor Mikko Pukkinen gave the opening words, and professor MP Artis Pabriks from Vidzeme University College (Latvia), CEO Kari Jalas from the Finnish Central Chamber of Commerce, squadron admiral Veli-Pekka Pennala from the navy headquarters, MEP Henrik Lax from the European Parlament, and director Esko Antola from Centrum Balticum presented interesting overviews about the economy and security of the Baltic Sea, and the Baltic Sea Strategy, to about 170 listeners. The presentations will be available in Finnish on the Baltic Sea Forum web page.

In the evening of the first day, participants were invited to the reception of the city of Turku, at the ship Suomen Joutsen. The reception served as a wonderful ending for the great first day of the Forum.

On Friday the themes from the first day were continued at the city hall work shops. In addition to the economical, security, and strategy point of views, the groups pondered about the cultural and environmental challenges of the area. About 120 people participated in the work shops. The reports of the conversations will be available in Finnish on the Baltic Sea Forum web page.

An additional extra for the Forum was nature photographer Janne Gröning with his archipelago pictures, which were put together as an exhibition for Thursday. The photographer himself attended the Forum also, telling about his work, both on Thursday and Friday.

The Baltic Sea Forum is becoming an annual tradition for Turku, and we are hoping that it will continue bringing together the multiple Baltic Sea actors from Finland - thus creating interesting conversation, new points of view, and a solid base for cooperation.
 

A warm thank you for all the participants - see you again in the spring 2010!




Find out more: Baltic Sea Forum
In Finnish: Itämeri-foorumi 2009


Additional information:
Project assistant Ms Sinimarja Mäkelä
Director Mr Esko Antola

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