April 2020 - October 2020, BGI Consulting carried out the Impact Evaluation of EU Funds’ Investments on the Implementation of the European Union Baltic Sea Region Strategy. The evaluation was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania.

 

European Union Baltic Sea Region Strategy (BSRS) is the first macroregional strategy in Europe, approved 10 June 2009. The aim of the strategy is to strengthen the cooperation among countries bordering the Baltic Sea, in order to better meet common challenges and realize the potential of the Baltic Sea region. The BSRS covers a macro-region of the Baltic Sea, consisting of 8 EU Member States (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden), 2 EEA Countries (Iceland, Norway) and 2 neighbouring countries (Belarus, Russia). The aim of the evaluation was to determine how EU funds and other sources of financing in Lithuania contributed to the implementation of the BSRS since 2009.

Despite the absence of a funding source specifically linked to the BSRS, in the period of 2009-2020, interventions from at least 41 different funding sources contributed to the implementation of the BSRS. Lithuanian project promoters, alone or with foreign partners, participated in more than 2.7 thousand projects with a total financial volume of approximately 5.6 billion EUR. From financial perspective, BSRS-relevant interventions have mostly contributed to the BSRS policy areas “Transport”, “Nutri”, “Hazards” and “Energy”, while the interventions in the BSRS policy areas “Bioeconomy” and “Innovation” had a relatively stronger regional cooperation dimension. The contribution of BSRS-relevant interventions to the implementation of the strategy was mostly incidental and indirect, however, they have benefited various Lithuanian economic sectors and social groups. In the long run, BSRS-relevant interventions have been relatively most beneficial to the transport, water supply, wastewater treatment, waste management and remediation, electricity and gas supply and R&D sectors. In these sectors benefits were created for businesses, residents, electricity and natural gas supply and distribution operators, education and science institutions and researchers.

 

Nevertheless, in the absence of a funding source specifically linked to the BSRS, the political attention to the implementation of the strategy in Lithuania is limited. Accordingly, the system for coordinating the implementation of the BSRS in the country is inefficient. There is a lack of awareness about the variety of possible sources of funding of BSRS-relevant interventions both at the institutional level and in the society. Therefore, the use of available investment programme funds for strategy implementation is insufficient and BSRS added value in planning and implementing investments in Lithuania is low.  On the basis of the evaluation results, BGI Consulting experts formulated strategic proposals and recommendations aimed at furthering international cooperation in solving the problems of the Baltic Sea region in the period of 2021-2027.

 

Various evaluation methods were used during the evaluation: document analysis, analysis of secondary sources, analysis of monitoring data, analysis of publicly available information, semi-structured interviews, analysis of intervention logic, comparative analysis, meta-analysis, expert evaluation and case studies.

 

The evaluation report is available here.