The 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) will be held in Riga on 28–30 August 2016. The main focus of the discussion will be high quality education and labour as requirements for unlocking the future growth potential of the Baltic Sea region.
“Together with our colleagues from all Baltic Sea region countries, we will share experiences and discuss the ways of building a stronger link between education and the labour market. We will also try to pinpoint areas for closer regional cooperation,” underlined Jānis Vucāns, President of the BSPC and the Baltic Assembly (BA).
Vucāns also added that the link between education and employment is one of the priorities of Latvia’s presidency of the BSPC and expressed his delight with Riga hosting the conference at the time that marks the 25th anniversary of the Baltic Sea region’s parliamentary cooperation.
The BSPC will commence on Sunday with the meetings of the Drafting Committee and the Standing Committee. The official opening ceremony will be held on 29 August at 9:30 AM at the University of Latvia Academic Centre of Natural Sciences at Jelgavas iela 1, Riga. The conference will be opened by Jānis Vucāns, President of the BSPC, and Carola Veit, Vice-President of the BSPC. Raimonds Vējonis, President of the Republic of Latvia, and Ināra Mūrniece, Speaker of the Saeima, will also address the delegates.
The list of speakers and experts includes Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission; Poul Nielson, former EU Commissioner and Danish cabinet minister; Maja Gojković, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) and Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia; Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, and others.
The first session of the conference will focus on cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, and the second session will tackle the issue of bridging education and the labour market to boost the regional competitiveness. This session will address the ways of identifying labour market needs, trend forecasting models, vocational and adult education. Delegates will also exchange views on cooperation in higher education and implementation of work-based learning schemes.
In honour of the 25th anniversary of the BSPC, Monday’s programme also includes the ceremonial session “Baltic Sea parliamentary cooperation: yesterday, today, tomorrow”.
The third session of the 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference will commence on Tuesday, 30 August. It will focus on realising employment opportunities to improve labour mobility and combat youth unemployment. The session is aimed at discussing the impact of migration and urbanisation on employment.
Concluding the conference, a final resolution will be adopted. The conference is the last BSPC event under the Latvian presidency, as this task will now be transferred to the Hamburg Parliament, Germany.
The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) was established in 1991 as a forum for political dialogue between parliamentarians from the Baltic Sea region: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Sweden. The BSPC gathers parliamentarians from 11 national parliaments, 11 regional parliaments, and 5 parliamentary organisations around the Baltic Sea. The Saeima, represented by its BA delegation, has been a participant since the establishment of the BSPC.
Program of the 25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference
Saeima Press Service