OREANDA-NEWS. June 20, 2008. A meeting of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council Committee of Senior Officials (BEAC CSO) was held on June 16-18 in Naryan-Mar under the Russian Chairmanship. The BEAC consists of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and the European Commission. 

The discussion of current affairs bore out the high dynamics of practical Barents cooperation. Since the last meeting of the Committee content-saturated sessions of the BEAC working groups on economic cooperation, transport and ecology have taken place. Timed for June’s session of the joint working group on culture was the meeting in Arkhangelsk of the culture ministers of the BEAC member states. Work has been completed on the text of an agreement on cooperation among the states’ rescue services, which may be signed this year. A number of specific cooperation projects in the interests of the indigenous peoples of the Barents Region have been discussed.

The Committee approved the decision of the Working Group on Economic Cooperation to extend the mandate of the Forest Sector Task Force for the year 2008. The BEAC Working Group on Trade Barriers was renamed the Working Group on Customs Cooperation. It is planned to hold a meeting of heads of customs bodies of the BEAC member states in autumn this year.

There was stated the high level of interaction between the BEAC and the Barents Regional Council, made up of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Northwest of Russia.

The next meeting of the BEAC CSO is scheduled to be held in September on the Solovetskiye Islands, Arkhangelsk Region.