The evolvement of the EU Straits project:

1. A meeting on the 12^th of November 2009 in Tallinn with Pas-de-Calais representatives where they introduced their strait as well as potential project ideas to the representatives of Euregio, Tallinn City, HOL (Union of Harju County Municipalities) and Harju County.
2. 13^th of November 2009, Euregio invited representatives of Kent County Council (Kent) and Pas-de-Calais County Council (Pas-de-Calais) for a roundtable meeting on Rail Baltica in Tallinn where the EU-Commission representatives were also present.

3. 15 and 16 March was 2010 the first technical meeting in Arras (France) towards the development of a common project; and to share their views on straits’ issues.

4. The second technical meeting on 27, 28 and 29 September in Messina (Italy). This technical meeting which integrated new partners and on the other hand strengthened the will of the parties to enter into an agreement. The project proposal for Interreg IV C was elaborated further.

5. The partners of the project are expected to sign in Pas-de-Calais in a political meeting the memorandum of understanding on the EU Straits Initiative on the 23^rd of November. The event will be combined with the next technical meeting for project preparations.

The MOU (Memorandum of understanding) recognises the special significance of the EU straits and stresses the need for the specific European development and financial tools for the straits in 2014-2020 because the present programmes do not meet the expectations of the local authorities of the straits due to their specific situations, as parts of bands of national and binational straits. The current territorial cohesion policy focuses on non maritime and non coastal areas but the straits have the specificity of being separate coastal territories sharing common maritime areas. The MOU will be implemented through the organisation of meetings with relevant European Union institutions and networks and submission of an INTERREG IV C application in 2011, whose lead partner will be the Pas-de-Calais County Council. The MOU will be managed by at least one annual meeting and has the duration of two years from the signature and may be renewed by the parties jointly.

The general objective of the political meeting is to promote the following idea:

“Make ‘maritime’ a major axis in the next European budget framework 2014-2020, taking straits into account for greater integrated maritime policy cohesion where there are strong issues in terms of regional development and cohesion”.

7. The Interreg IV C project fourth call will close on the 1^st of April 2011 for ‘Regional Initiative’ projects.