Adopted in December 2017 as a flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, INTERCONNECT serves as a clear example of a change in the public transport system in the Baltic Sea Region. Indeed, the EUSBSR is implemented, among others, by flagships namely a single project, a set of project contributing to the same action or a process. According to the EUSBSR the label of a flagship can be given to a project/process that fulfils certain criteria: it has a high macro-regional impact; it contributes to meeting the objectives, indicators and targets of the EUSBSR; it is related to the implementation of one or more actions of the policy area/horizontal action concerned.
In this regard as INTERCONNECT addresses the opportunity of curbing the car-reliant mobility trend in the South Baltic area by means of user-adjusted and more sustainable public transport services for regional and cross-border travels, the flagship label gives a stronger credibility for our action and helps us reach a wider audience than only the South Baltic Programme stakeholders. In particular, we see an added value of being acknowledged by the EUSBSR in our ambition to connect the stakeholders representing various competence sectors of relevance to the public transport – for the sake of a more systematic cooperation across the state borders. The cooperation with the PA Transport Coordinators, the national transport ministries of the EU-BSR countries and other initiatives connected to it will provide us with a unique opportunity to work out ways to put our findings on the policy level and better embed the public transport issues in the strategic frameworks. We would like to see that cross-border public transport services truly contribute to more intensive cross-border convergence processes and stimulate the sustainable regional growth.
For more information about flagship projects, click here