The Scandria Alliance contributed to the EUSBSR Annual Forum 2026 in Tallinn held under the headline “Shaping Secure, Connected and Thriving Societies”
From 11 to 13 May, the EUSBSR Annual Forum gathered governments, cities, researchers and regional networks at Kultuurikatel in Tallinn for its “Resilience Edition.” Under the theme Co-Governing Resilience: Shaping Secure, Connected and Thriving Societies, the Forum worked through a shared challenge: climate pressures, security threats, demographic decline and infrastructure vulnerabilities are no longer occur separately. They overlap, reinforce each other, and increasingly shape everyday life across the region. The Forum’s conclusion was clear: no country can tackle these challenges alone. One positive development followed just days later, when Norway formally became the ninth full member of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region on 18 May. For the Scandria Alliance, which counts Eastern Norway County Network among its members, this marks an important step towards a stronger and more complete regional cooperation framework.
The Scandria Alliance was actively involved in two sessions during the Forum. Together with the BSR Urban Mobility project, we organised the session “From plans to reality: governing urban mobility for resilience“, which offered a reality check on SUMP implementation across Baltic Sea urban nodes. Cities have developed plans and TEN-T objectives are in place, but turning them into actual change on the ground requires the right political and governance conditions, and that is often where progress slows down.
The Scandria Alliance also joined the panel “Mind the Gap: permanent cross-border platforms as silo-breakers between regions and the EU.“ The session addressed one of the more persistent problems in Baltic Sea cooperation: the gap between what happens at the local and regional level and what is decided at the EU level. The discussion put a spotlight on the role that permanent cross-border bodies, including regional alliances and EGTCs, can play here. The session underlined that strengthening these platforms is essential for a more unified and resilient macro-region
